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Why Dell Won't Offer Linux On Its PCs
derrida sends us to an article in the Guardian by Jack Schofield explaining why he believes Dell won't offer Linux on its PCs. In the end he suggests that those lobbying Dell for such a solution go out and put together a company and offer one themselves. Quoting: "The most obvious [problem] is deciding which version of Linux to offer. There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one — or the same one with a different desktop, or whatever. It costs Dell a small fortune to offer an operating system... so the lack of a standard is a real killer. The less obvious problem is the very high cost of Linux support, especially when selling cheap PCs to naive users who don't RTFM... and wouldn't understand a Linux manual if they tried. And there's so much of it! Saying 'Linux is just a kernel, so that's all we support' isn't going to work, but where in the great sprawling heap of GNU/Linux code do you draw the line?"
More importantly, isn't anyone else tired of hearing about why or why not? Enough already, no one really cares.
"Start your own company and do it yourself?" The market is saturated- there's already a large number of major OEM computer manufacturers. Trying to reach that level from scratch isn't going to work. That's like saying "You don't like Coca-Cola or Pepsi? Start your own soda company then." It's wholly impractical and simply dodges the issue.
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Linux isn't really for the faint hearted, and is an absolute nightmare to maintain if the user is used to MS bloatware.
Many MS users don't know what a driver is or where to find one, what do they do when their new printer doesn't come with linux-compatible drivers?
He brings up a good point with the difficulties of providing tech support. Maybe Dell should offer computers with blank drives and let the buyer select a distro cd to ship with it, with the explicit instruction that tech support relating to software issues won't be availible.
The most obvious [problem] is deciding which version of Linux to offer. There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one -- or the same one with a different desktop, or whatever.
This has been answered many times. The people who know enough to know that they want a different distro can figure out how to get it on there. Therefore, they can pick a noob-friendly distro (like Fedora or Ubuntu), thereby guaranteeing the existence of drivers for the hardware. The rest of us who want to be all l33t and install Debian, Gentoo or even Linux From Scratch can figure it out ourselves.
FreeBSD would solve the problem of distribution sprawl.
You cannot honestly think the level of Windows support necessary for the average computer user is ANYWHERE near comparable to the level of support that would be necessary for Linux, can you? The first time a technician has to explain to grandma how to manually edit a .conf file is the last time anyone in that person's sphere of influence would ever buy from that company. Linux is simply not ready to be a widespread desktop OS.
The logic seems to make sense. I'm not sure why they don't just partner with one Distro and just go with it however. If someone really knows the diffence between distros then that person changing them wouldn't be an issue really. Dell doesn't NEED to support all the distros as I think the community already supports them pretty well (although I've had my share of Linux-based headaches too).
However, while slightly OT... I wouldn't want to be the IT manager at a company that I allowed everyone in a 10,000 person company to decide what distro and software they wanted to run. I mean if someone has a problem with something... supporting (as the acticle says) 100+ different distros, different kernel versions, different package/install systems, different windowing systems... hell even different text editors. It would be HELL for an IT department to support, so i could see how Dell would have a similar issue. Even simple things would become nightmares to support. Even asking the users what version they are using would confuse many.
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I support a bunch of Windows boxes, in addition to a bunch of OpenBSD machines.
As far as Windows and daylight savings goes, XP/2003 boxes were all patched by standard patch-tuesday patches. For win2k it took me a grand total of 15 minutes to research it on MS's website, write (+ copy/paste) a few text files, and roll them out on the Active Directory Domain. Not really tough. There are lots of problems with Windows. Daylight savings time just wasn't a big one.
It's all about hardware that works. It's great that I could buy a computer with Ubuntu on it, but you know I'm going to format it the second it comes though the door and install what I want. When I install what I want, I WANT it to work, because the kernel has supported that hardware since version 2.6.whatever.
Dell supports windows all the time, as part of their business, and you presume to say they don't know how it's done?
They make a lot of money giving people what they want. They understand it a lot better than you do.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
Just don't offer software support, or charge for it. They could do this with all their PCs.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
What's wrong with the existing open source series from Dell, provided there is a genuine reduction in price for the absence of MS software?
If Dell is hesitant about offering Linux what the Free Software community forming a third party company and approaching Dell with a proposal that Dell simply contract the entire Linux support operation out to them?
Dell couldn't manage to support GNU/Linux, but lets not forget that Dell doesn't really support Windows either. Sure it's impossible to explain to your average user that the Internet and their web browser are different things. This doesn't change if the browser is IE or Firefox or Konqueror. However, as a "geek" I regularly need to provide tech support to friends and family. I have a much easier time doing this once I have switched them over to Ubuntu from Windows. It's simply more user friendly and secure. If you are looking for a new PC, I would highly recommend system76, not any big OEM that functions as a division of Microsoft.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
This is IMO, a problem that is custom made for the open source community. No, I'm not suggesting that people put together a hardware company to build their own. I'm suggesting that Dell give away a few of each PC they want to offer Linux on to any Linux distro group that wants to be supported.
In the end, they won't have to do the image build nor support it. Just let the Linux distro folks support it.
Example: The Ubuntu group could build the image for Dell to put on each line of machines they want to sell with Ubuntu Linux. The Ubuntu group provides software/configuration support, and Dell supports the hardware. Once the Ubuntu group provides a pre-built image, Dell doesn't have much left to do but burn it on the machine and ship.
Sure, there is a bit more to it, but that's it in a nutshell, and it is about open source support. Dell gets to sell the hardware, the OSS community supports the software, and everyone is happy. Current support for Linux comes from the OSS community anyway. Dell is just trying to limit their exposure when they shouldn't even try to expose themselves to support issues. Simply sell the machine as OSS supported software.
When it comes down to hardware issues, I'm certain that each Linux distro group will support tools to determine that it is hardware vs. software. Once that is done there is no reason not to ship boxes with Linux installed. Dell doesn't have to choose which distro to suppport. Let each distro sign up and if they don't, don't sell boxes with that distro installed.
To me it seems just too simple to be this difficult.
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The best I can come up with is just pick Ubuntu for instance, outsouce support to cannonical (big contract for them, perhaps several others). They would immediately become the community's champions and mass distribution will result in networks of emerging experts to help their friends out. No need for centralized support, if its everybody's os, its everybody's responsibility to help others out.
When cars first came out, they broke down all the time, and every driver was also his own mechanic. This persisted through to the 60s when men were still expected to be able to fix a car by pulling up the hood and futzing about. You also saw a lot of opining about the internals of how cars should be put together.
Then Toyota showed up, and made cars that stopped breaking down. Gradually, nobody was hyper-opinionated about the internals of cars, till we get to the point today where nobody but Toyota dealership can actually understand the internals.
Same with Linux distros. We've been so starved of turnkey solutions for so long, that we're all hyper knowedgable distro experts! Just like the early auto operator/mechanics. Of course these people are going to have fine-grained and diverse favorites.
When someone gets a new laptop and figures out that its "good enough", they'll stop worrying that it doesn't have Slack (or whathaveyou), and just appreciate its "good enough"ness. This can't happen from the demand side, the supply side has to lead the way. Then the userbase of Linux will change. Then we'll start to complain bitterly. Remember when AOL happened and the Internet started to suck? That fate awaits Linux too.
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And anywho, nobody's asking them to support every possible distribution for their computers. They're asking for two things:
1) support SOME distro, it doesn't matter what it is
2) open source any hardware wierdness you control, stuff like sleep/suspend, software volume control buttons, and whatnot. Just put that stuff out there and all the big distros will automatically move to support you. That's what distros do.
We're not asking, say, Toshiba to create a huge linux compile farm and put out Toshutils for every distro. Just expose the API, create a reference implementation, and let the community do the rest.
Dell supports windows all the time, as part of their business, and you presume to say they don't know how it's done?
<ANECDOTAL>
Based on my one time calling tech support (in Bangalore, I assume), Yes, I'd be willing to say that they don't know how it's done!
</ANECDOTAL>
OK, They know how it's done (let script monkeys handle the caller), but they don't know how it's done *RIGHT*.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
While this might seem like a proble to tha average Slashdot geek who is used to demanding the ability to "roll their own" and so on, these are not the people that Dell would be selling to. Dell would be targeting people that want to unpack the box, plug it in and boot it up and get straight away to surfing the net and running some office applications, maybe some image management software. That and maybe corporate customers with similar needs. The people that want to pick and choose their flavor of Linux on their new Dell box would be perfictly happy getting a Dell box with nothing at all on it, and loading the OS themselves from their distro of choice, tweeking the install to fit their needs. These are not Dell's customers for preloaded Linux.
Realistically, Dell need only offer either Red Hat or SuSE, both of which offer easy to support distros.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Yes, Linux is no piece of cake to support to naive users, but is Windows that much better?
I've dealt with so many naive Windows users who couldn't (or don't know how) to install the most basic of Virus/Spyware protection, or how fix the most basic of issues.
I guess it's a matter of the lesser of two evils. Dell would rather help "naive" Windows users then perhaps open the door to something more secure and support "naive" users there instead.
Remember VA Linux? They were going to make Linux PCs. Biggest IPO first-day runup in history. Then the stock declined 98% from the peak. Nobody is going to get funding for that idea for a while.
The more likely player is Lenovo. They're not as beholden to Microsoft as Dell is, they can offer corporate support through IBM, and they've sold Linux laptops outside the US.
This reminds me of pretty much the only Simpson's episode I ever saw....
... "stranger" ... looks at the furious crowd rapidly approaching ... "angry mod" ... turn to the car "stranger" ... and hops in. (or something like that, it was years ago)
.... "give up Microsoft deals" ... "lose linux business" .... looks at mighty Microsoft able to do whatever they want with barely a slap on the wrist from the DoJ .... "give up Microsoft favor" .... turns to Linux fans - "piss off linux users", ok then.
Bart does something to piss off a large crowd. They start chasing him, our for vengeance. A car pulls to to a screeching stop in front of Bart and a well dressed man offers Bart a get-away ride.
Bart says quickly, "angry mod"
I can just imagine execs at Dell
We've heard all this "too many choices" - "too hard for newbies" over and over. Yeah, right. That's the real reason, yeah!
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
So Dell spends a $million studying which Linux distro (including desktop) is best for Dell, and then supports that one. Probably its own distro derived from one that has a strong commercial support contract for Dell. It doesn't support anything but the basic use-case, whether that's office suite, web/email/whatever server, web terminal, or whichever. Then they sell PC configured only that way, and tell people who buy it that reconfiguring it for any other use case voids their support warranty.
If they did that, then Dell would wind up with a PC much easier/cheaper to support than a proprietary Windows PC. Recurrent problems could be fixed by Dell, or paid by Dell to their upstream distro team to fix, without waiting for MS to care.
And they'd sell a PC that didn't require sending a few hundred bucks to MS for licenses. They could rig their package repository to authenticate and charge a SW subscription, then charge SW vendors to deploy their SW through it.
There's a lot of money in that, and it's not so hard. While appealing to the most fanboy customer base out there. I wonder if "not pissing off the Microsoft cash cow" is really the reason.
--
make install -not war
Dell supports their PC's and will try to make sure the device is working but will not sit there and try to support every different Microsoft app that there is. They only try to support basic functionality and basic apps and stick to security, integration and general software maintenance.
So how is this different from supporting Linux? All they have to do is create a knowledgeable support staff, good knowledge base and they'll have pretty much the same thing they have for Windows. It's really not that hard once they make the decision as to what distro they are going to support, strike a deal with the distro's maintainers, and maybe even farm out the support to the distros maintainers or a third party. Pretty simple when you think about it.
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The article's OK, but the title of the post should be "Why (some dude thinks) Dell Won't Offer Linux..." etc.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Would it be that far fetched that someone is paying Dell to *not* fully endorse/support Linux? These stories about Dell "will soon support linux" have been published about once a year for the last ten years. I don't think it's ever going to happen, and I would just conclude that a large company with vested interest in seeing Linux fail is responsible for it. A lot of other vendors support Linux, the main difference here is that Dell is the largest distributor of new Windows/Intel PC's.
For the record, I'm a linux user slightly tainted with a mac laptop. I've been using various distros over the years as desktops and servers. I like linux a lot and I think it is more usable for real work than either windows (ME is my last experience though) or OS X. That said, the summary author (or article author) has a strong point about man pages. They are often very difficult to understand and almost always devoid of examples. The little syntax structure at the top isn't going to help a complete newb and even after 5 or 6 years of linux use, I prefer to find a "howto" than read a man page any day. Anyway, the man page criticism is quite valid.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Several months ago I bought a cheap laptop from Walmart. I found out from Acer's website they had a Linux cd distribution that I could download. What did this mean to me? Everything worked together, including wireless, sound, and accelerated video. Trying a different distribution, like Ubuntu worked without any hassles. Since then, I bought several other laptops from Walmart knowing they took time to make sure their laptops supported a free operating system. They have been the most trouble free units I have had the pleasure of giving my family. Its a shame Dell doesn't latch onto this idea.
Dell do not need an existing standard to start selling Linux Desktops. Dell only need to make a decision on what is the default: a default distro, and a default desktop environment. They do not need to support every single distro or desktop environment or editor or browser under the sun, just the default. Anybody having special requirements on distro or desktop environment or anything will pretty much be able to figure out how to customize their own environment. This will also create a huge amount of opportunities for third-party support providers, which is good for business and open source.
Generally speaking, Grandma's sphere of influence isn't very big when it comes to operating systems, is it?
i forget
Their tech support is less then usable, regardless of what OS is on the computer anyway.
I vote with my money, NOT TO PAY to Microsoft - simple like that.
:. Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface.
I have no evidence to support this, but it seems that this has nothing to do with technical support at all. My guess is that Dell has some awesome OEM pricing for Windows (maybe $25 a pop or so), and this deal with Microsoft is contingent on them not offering competing operating systems. If they started pre-loading Linux, their cost of Windows may go up substantially.
However, I could be way off base, so feel free to point it out if I am.
Open up a voting booth online. Ubuntu and FedoraCore (and, if it's legal in a few weeks) OpenSUSE will dominate the list, but I prefer Mandriva, and who knows; maybe after the "big three and lost fourth," they can see if any community distros stack up votes. A good one is SimplyMEPIS, which is the most popular spinoff of Ubuntu (as of 6.0). (Ranked by distrowatch.com.) I wonder if it's possible - but could they work with a large Kernel supporter (Red Hat is a large one, but good luck with allowing SUSE...) to make modules that can be loaded by GRUB? This is not a matter of choosing between Wolvix and aLinux, the two general desktop Linux distros at the end of the top 100 list at Distrowatch (no offence), but rather making the community at large happy, and with variance. Also, it needs to be equal between KDE and GNOME. Fedora is more GNOME oriented, as is plain Ubuntu, so Mandriva comes to mind. SUSE's KDE is great, but with Novell possibly violating the GPL, that would not be an option for me.
is that Dell won't sell you a computer without a Microsoft OS. Back around 1996 or so you could still order from Dell a PC with no OS and they would install some minimally functional DOS kernel just so they could test it. Obviously Dell can sell PCs without an OS if they wanted to, but they don't. I suspect the reason has a lot to do with contractual arrangements with MS and nothing to do with Linux. People who want Linux on their Dell PCs are most likely the type who know how to install it themselves anyway. So the issue is just political and has nothing to do with technical issues. In reality today, Dell only sells laptops to those who want Linux because there are few alternatives for laptops. For desktops, Linux users will most likely go elsewhere or build the machine themselves.
I would already be happier, if there was the option to buy systems without operating system. Dell could sell such systems cheaper not only because of the lacking windows system but also because they would not have to offer support for OS issues.
The DST problem has been a nightmare in my company, both for Outlook and especially PocketPCs. Microsoft has released a series of patches, each of which just muddles the situation more. In the end, they recommend manually fixing all your appointments. Well gee, if I knew when they were all supposed to be, I wouldn't need Outlook, would I?
It seems to me that the folks who actually want Linux are generally the sort who'd just go out and build their own computer and probably wouldn't buy a Dell to begin with.
I suppose it's like how Peta is always bugging people to switch over to a pure vegan diet despite the health benefits, it'll never happen.
Anyhow. Anybody who actually needs 'support' for an operating system is using it wrong. (that's not supposed to be taken seriously, it's a joke)
I don't own a snook, and if I did I wouldn't leave it cocked.
It's funny they talk about support, because on a *brand new* Dell box a friend bought, their support has been total crap.
...).
Not only did they slag him with Vista (he wanted XP, per my advice), they wouldn't downgrade it and it doesn't work right. He installed drivers and crap based on Dell's tech support and eventually got the system so hosed it restarted explorer (the desktop, not the whole computer) every few seconds. I was finally able to get to a system restore point (after many, many tries--it's hard to get to when you don't have time to click anything) and undo that at least. When I checked the Event Viewer, there were almost 20,000 messages in there (not all errors, but the system is only a week old, so there can't be many normal ones unless it logs every damn time you click [ Allow ] or [ Cancel ]
Anyhow, I think I'm going to tag this story with what I feel is the real answer to the question posed in the headline: Microsoft
Maybe they're not to blame, but I have a hard time seeing why Dell would want to avoid selling something its customers want...
I hope parent is merely a troll (Grandma + config file is rapidly turning into a troll meme) but I'll bite. 1998 called; they want their lack of GUI configuration tools back.
On my Ubuntu box, I have had to manually edit configuration files to do two things:
- Install and configure beta software
- Install and configure Apache + MediaWiki
- Configure Vi
The one other type of config file I've had to edit regularly in the recent past are xorg.conf files. A computer that comes with Linux preinstalled would never need xorg.conf twiddlery; reconfiguring it when you upgrade your graphics cards isn't a particularly difficult thing to do (If you're the sort of person who is likely to upgrade your own hardware, then you can do it).The real reason Dell won't offer Linux PCs is plainly that it's not a good deal for them. It would mean more expensive Windows licenses, and it would mean less money for them from all the people paying them to bundle crapware with their boxes. The only way to have good, high-quality Linux PCs is to have an OEM willing to sell nothing but Linux boxes. Preferably one willing to sell well-designed, high-end computers and laptops with fully compatible hardware and pre-installed, thoroughly tested desktop environments and proprietary format support. Hopefully, packaged with a nice manual and long-term tech support for a particular set of "supported" packages too (Like Canonical does with Ubuntu).
Hey, I can dream.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.
Look, taking a generic laptop and running Linux on that is NOT all that exciting. How about Instead, create a multi-core laptop with low power. In addition, drop the battery. Use a super capacitor. The battery is good for a couple of years. But a supercapacitor will last longer than the laptop. Of course, that means that much lower power (instead of several hours, it will only be about an hour. But in general, the average person has power close by. If they can plug in and be fully charged in a matter of minutes, well, that is new and useful. Then sell either an external battery or supercapacitor that lengthens the time to 3-4 hours.
Finally, drop all the extras. Skip the DVD or take the IBM approach and make it be a battery, floppy, or dvd bay. Consider the idea of having a 4 Gig flash on board for the OS. That way, the drive can be powered down the bulk of the time. By having multi-core, allow the system to run on 1 core during the battery (but have 2 or more when power is available.).
IOW, do something interesting; Do not try to be dell.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Not only is Linux not ready for desktop -it's unlikely to ever be 'ready'. There have been enough developers, working for enough years on Linux for them to have been able to roll out a decent desktop system by now. Whatever they might have you believe, most people developing for Linux have never had, and will never have desktop as a target. When you're smart enough to be able to develop distro code, your primary motivation isn't always satisfying the person who can barely plug the damn machine in.
No, Windows is not easy to support; whether users can use it is not Dell's problem. But rolling out an entirely new operating system on its machines means Dell has to train new/existing support personnel to deal with Linux problems - from serious errors to "How do I launch programs without a Start menu?" - in addition to dealing with other issues (configuration, etc). Doing this would cost Dell a fortune which they probably would not get back from the marginally greater sales offering Linux would net them.
I very much doubt the support issue is the problem. If enough people would buy it Dell could just start the Dell Computer Expert line and make it damn clear that you don't order one unless you know what your doing and their is no support on anything but the hardware. Hell if they were worried enough about their name they could just sell them under some name other than Dell.
I suspect the problem is economic.
For starters I bet people demanding linux are far more willing to voice demands than they are to put up money. I bet tons of the people who asked dell to offer a linux PC wouldn't really buy one. They might like linux but when it comes time to buy a new computer they decide to dull boot and realize it's cheaper just to buy the computer preloaded with windows. Even if this isn't the case the possibility that linux advocates make more noise than they would buy computers is something Dell must consider.
Secondly Dell doesn't have apps to sell people who buy linux only boxes printer ink and all sorts of other high margin items. If anything the problem is they realize the people who buy linux boxes wouldn't buy extended support, at least not the sort of support it was economical to offer. Dell probably has a nearly zero margin on the basic PC and makes up their money on the extras. Why bother selling a linux PC if the purchasers are smart enough not to buy any of the high margin extras?
Finally there is the concern of pissing off MS. Whatever anti-trust rulings MS is constrained by why risk pissing them off unless it would bring you a high margin business?
The issue isn't offering support it is making money!
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Its going to be expensive to set up and expensive to maintain. Windows support people are 10 a penny and linux support people are not.
I personally believe the solution to this is for Dell to create there own Linux distrobution. I know, there are tons already available, but since Dell has a huge stranglehold on its suppliers, it could easily demand drivers for Linux. In addition for support, it could create a remote access support through ssh or something.
Just my two cents
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I'd have your friend send the thing back (if thats possible) and then turn around and pretend to be a Small Business by clicking Small Business solutions or whatever it's currently labeled. Dell still sells XP there (and for larger businesses of course).
### A computer that comes with Linux preinstalled would never need xorg.conf twiddlery;
Unless that user wants to use a graphic tablet, a second mouse with some additional buttons, a different refresh rate for his monitor, a multi-monitor setup or a ton of other things. There is a lot of things that one can do with GUI tools in Linux, but I still have to visit xorg.conf *far* more often then I would like. And unless there one day comes a proper GUI configuration tool for said file that won't change, doing configuration changes without restarting Xorg would be a nice thing to have. Beside the lack of a standard cross distribution package format xorg.conf is among the ugliest show stopper issues for Linux on the desktop.
Why pre-install if everyone has their own preference? Let the end user decide on the distro, desktop enviro, etc. for themselves just like we have been doing since the beginning.
NO (absolutely none what-so-ever) ATI cards unless ATI decides to at least produce a binary driver that works (prefereably source, but at the very least, something that actually works as advertised and works in linux, not just for Toms hardware under the most fully patched version of WinXP)
NO (absolutely none what-so-ever) Phoenix BIOS unless they're willing to release every single last detail about ACPI, etc. to the kernel devs ... ditto for any other BIOS manufacturer.
Basically if Dell could do that, it wouldn't matter what distro they put on (I said Ubuntu because it's nice and flashy and is free and has left most of the libraries reasonably unmollested, unlike some distros ... I use Slackware myself)
This much should not be hard for a company with resources like Dell or Gateway or Toshiba to pull off ...
None of those things are the domain of "grandma" though. I agree that Xorg is sorely lacking in user-friendliness, though.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.
Back in the day, I used win95 at work. Also not as good.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I'd just start a small software side of the company, or work with a top distro team, and take the best of all the linux distros and make an uber distro with the Dell branding on it. I mean, all of "Dell's products" are already just branded items made by real hardware makers so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine.
Download and install the patch for Windows XP. Done. Download and install the patch for Outlook. Done.
Now tell my Dad how to fix the hard-coded DST in his $50 "atomic" wall clock.
I'm surely gonna get troll rated for this, but it needs to be said...
/. going over to the polls on the Dell opinion site and clicking "Yes" thousands of times. [Or did you not realize that advocacy groups can astroturf as well as corporate groups?]
I've been there done that. Had an Amiga, used Linux and so forth at one time or another. I remember with the Amiga how many of us wrote letters to Software, Etc. or other companies begging them to support our computers. And then the demand never materialized as we claimed it would. So eventually, the Amiga was dropped to the dustbin of history. After buying a PC, I came to realize that the Amiga really wasn't "better", it was simply different. advanced in some ways, behind in others.
The Linux "demand" is similar. It's largely just astroturfing, rather than real demand from customers. It's people from
I'm fairly certainly Dell understands this. They've been around a long time. At one time they even release their own version of System V which was highly regarded in the industry. So they're not unfamiliar with Unix. They've also at various times offered machines without operating systems, or even with Linux.
But the demand wasn't there, which is why they keep falling back to the position they are in, and why despite freeping their poll they are unlikely to listen to it. Maybe they will, and if they do, you'd better start buying your machines from Dell to backup your poll answers.
As for open source advocates starting up their own company to sell machines. It's been tried. It was called VA Linux. They changed their name, abandoned selling computers and now run sourceforge.
More importantly, Dell is fading fast in the marketplace (as everyone who's read the press on them knows). So if they don't want to support Linux, then fine. HP will.
From last week's article on "Huge Linux Desktop deals get HP thinking" , there was this excellent quote by Scott7477:
"It looks to me like HP is responding to what customers are asking for, while Dell is clinging to Microsoft's subsidies. The top 5 vendors look like this:
1. HP - 17.4%
2. Dell - 14.5%
3. Lenovo - 7.1%
4. Acer - 6.6%
5. Toshiba - 3.7%"
If Dell doesn't want to listen to customers and support Linux, that's quite fine by me. I'll vote by taking my dollars elsewhere. Sending business to Dells competition is the single best way to send Dell a message.
And if Dell doesn't listen, they'll continue to go under. That's quite fine by me too. It will allow the other Linux vendors to prosper.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
The most obvious [problem] is deciding which version of Linux to offer. There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one -- or the same one with a different desktop, or whatever...
There is a horribly easy solution for this "problem": Support only one major distro, yet make sure that all hardware included with the PC is compatible with Linux. Slap a "Linux Certified" sticker on the damn thing and quite a few people will buy it. If they're more advanced, then they'll appreciate the fact that when they install their favorite distro instead of whatever the PC comes with, they won't have to hunt down a forum thread that points to an obscure hardware driver that is still in alpha, because they know that the hardware will "Just Work (tm)." If they're new to computers, or are the "A computer is an appliance" type, they won't have any need to switch from the supplied distro to anything else in the first place. It's a win win situation.
Either this guy didn't think his objections through very well, or he is just spouting FUD and hoping people take it at face value.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Let's set it up like the NCAA tournament Bracket, and give the prominent distros a 1 seed, and have them battle to the death!
Linux manual? Hmmm... Oh, here it is... Right on top of my Windows Vista manual.
Grandma is fifty, and working full time. Grandma is seventy, a senior volunteer at the local library or community hospital. Grandma can't be ignored.
I'm with you on the man pages. I've never really been clear on what the overriding philosophy is behind them, but they're not terribly useful.
IMO, it would be better to view them as a "quick reference guide" rather than in-depth, conceptual technical documentation. Every page ought to begin, below the syntax breakdown, with some examples of common tasks that a user might want to perform with that command, and how to do it. More theoretical or conceptual explanations should go further down, or into a separate file (maybe referenced under 'Further reading' or something).
Aside from the fact that the examples are buried way too far down in the article, I've always thought that the manpage for rsync was pretty good -- it has a lot of examples, as well as a description of all the flags. That could easily be a model for other commands.
But I've really started relying on manpages less and less as of late, and just using Google more and more; if I have a problem where I once might have switched terminals and looked at the manpage, now I just Google the command and some keywords relating to what I'm trying to do, and find somebody's HOWTO or a forum posting about it. Not ideal, but it's more useful than much of the inbuilt documentation.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Even if a total newbie would generate less support calls with Linux than they do with Windows, Dell cannot drop Windows support, so, in any case, they will have to pay both bills.
There is also some risk that boxes that Joe Sixpack can't use because-it-is-not-running-Windows could damage Dell's reputation.
And add to that that someone from Microsoft could have mentioned, casually, let's say, while playing golf, something about how OEM license price could vary whether they think the client has or not some special strategic value.
With the razor-thin margins in this market, I would understand if Dell decided not to offer more Linux computers.
Come on... It is not that hard to see.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Another person replied to this correctly. The company I work for resells Dell systems and for the next year (from the date of Vista's release) we can still get XP, but only on "SOHO" systems, which is all we sell anyway since they have a 3 year warranty. You will pay a little more, but then again, no Vista. Honestly, why can't they just sell a non-OSed system? Then, for the shits and giggles of it, you can select your FREE Linux distro of choice from several flavors, no support included naturally (as if you could understand them anyway). Best support for Linux comes from forums anyway if you ask me (no I don't have proof, flame me).
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I'm a Unix/Linux guy myself, but I have to say that you miss the target entirely here if you think that daylight savings time patching is easier on Linux than on Windows.
/usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York to /etc/localtime, then also manually copy a zoneinfo file to etc/localtime in the chroot jails for both named and dhcpd, and restart these daemons, as well as ntpd (time server).
On Windows, patches came with the standard Tuesday updates, and all I had to do was accept installation. Ok, for boxes without outbound internet access, I actually had to copy the patches and install them manually, but that was pointy-clicky-done, with no hassle whatsoever.
On my Linux boxes, I had to install (which for my Gentoo boxes means recompile) a new version of the timezone-data package (Arthur Olson time zones), then manually copy
Then I had to repeat the whole procedure again, because a new version of timezone-data came out, because of bugs in the first one. Then I had to repeat the whole procedure YET again a third time cause the bugfix release wasn't complete. All in 2007.
Then, on Sun boxes, I had to, in addition to a system update, also install a java runtime environment update, because of course java can't use the same timezone data as the system, but has to have its own embedded implementation. And with more than one jre per system, that meant one update per jre instance.
I still prefer Linux and Unix, but it's not easier, and I bet many people forgot to update the zoneinfo files manually for chrooted daemons. Hopefully, most of them will only see odd logging timestamps. (Which in itself can be bad enough, if RIAA asks who used a DHCP IP address at a certain time between now and when the "old" DST kicked in.)
Regards,
--
*Art
The only way for this to be a realistic option would be to limit the possibilities as far as hardware and software to something manageable/supportable. Imagine a division of Dell, or some other company like IBM or HP, that would create a nicely configured version of Linux with less configurations/options but really slick defaults where everything worked well out of the box. They could then guarantee that this group of machines and these peripherals would work with their distro - which they could do by controlling the hardware and software. They could even set it up so that the distro can be transferred to/boot on any of those machines ala OSX on Apple Hardware (pre-Intel anyway).
Linux as it is now without any restriction on its possibilities or options is not feasible support-wise. While many startups have failed in making Linux computers Dell, for example, certainly has the resources to make this work. If not an instant success in the consumer market, you would think such a creation would win them some corporate and government business and give them complete control over their own platform. I know many that would pay for a drop-in Linux solution with guarantees that it will work together perfectly as expected - especially with big-business support options. And while you could never be vendor locked in with Linux such a situation might be their best shot at providing enough value to justify their hardware and software over the rest.
I'll strongly consider System76 if they offer a laptop with better than 1280x800 resolution when I'm in the market again. I'm running Ubuntu on a Dell Inspiron 6000 with 1920x1200 resolution and could not tolerate the downgrade. But I'd love to buy a machine with Linux pre-installed and tuned.
Have you used linux in the last 5 years? Save slackware, every distro I have seen had a GUI app that did at least those things, some better than others, but all did most to some extent. SAX worked the best from what I seen (much better than windows)... but I didn't go very far with ubuntu, so I can't say about that. Fedora kind of has lame GUI config tools... but fedora isn't grandma's linux, ether.
Great Intellect...
I think that's pretty much what I said, just without the genitalia reference.
Dell has also seen awesome OEM system sales for Windows.
---along with digital cameras, printers, monitors and HDTV, anything, really, that can be marketed as a Windows peripheral.
OEM Linux disappears from Walmart.com for three simple reasons:
Entry level for Vista at Walmart is a $500 Celeron laptop. Vista Premium is a $900 dual-core laptop from Toshiba.
OEM Linux doesn't significantly undercut Windows on price, doesn't sell worth a damn anyway and there is nothing to drive after-market sales. No iTunes for Linux. No Windows Home Server. No XBox 360. No HD-DVD. No Grand Theft Auto.
> The most obvious [problem] is deciding which version of Linux to offer.
> There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one
> It costs Dell a small fortune to offer an operating system... so the lack of a standard is a real killer.
This article makes no sense. Dell can just do what every PC company has done since the dawn of the PC age: Pick one and go with it. The author paints a picture of a crowded meeting room in Dell full of Dell's resident geeks saying "Wow! I can't make up my mind! This is tooo confusing!" (something geeks never say)
Now tell my Dad how to fix the hard-coded DST in his $50 "atomic" wall clock.
If it's a SkyScan, Set it in a window overnight so it picks up the update. If that doesn't work, Switch off DST and change the time zone one zone to the East like I did.
The truth shall set you free!
And is the "problem" limited to the fact that you have to change the time yourself? If so, my microwave is teh suck too.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
"The real reason Dell won't offer Linux PCs is plainly that it's not a good deal for them."
The real reason Dell won't offer Linux PCs is because the people who use Linux would prefer to build their own computer. Why duplicate the infrastructure?
Let's face it: businesses looking at Linux aren't equally considering 100+ distros. They're looking at maybe 5. And those five distros are close enough where Dell could easily cross-train their technicians to offer support for all of them. Using the argument that there are just too many distros is silly because most of those distros are either specialized or not even considered when a business looks at Linux. The promise of "Linux on the Desktop" will never really come true until a major vendor is willing to jump in with both feet and really push a distro (or a few distros) forward. IBM had this chance and missed it. I really don't think Dell is going to be able to pull it off either because they aren't serious enough. They could, but they won't.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
reconfiguring it when you upgrade your graphics cards isn't a particularly difficult thing to do
Bzzt, wrong answer.
I've said it before, I'll say it again:
If you want Linux to be mainstream-friendly, one of the absolute must-haves is that the user must NEVER EVER EVER, any any circumstances, have to either (1) edit a text config file by hand, or (2) use the command line.
No exceptions, no "most of the time" situation, no "power users only" weasel words. Config files and command lines are OK for developers, but not for mainstream users -- end of story.
I'll get flamed for it, but I speak the truth.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Not only is Windows not ready for the desktop but it is an insult to the intelligence and actually makes you stupid. Linux has been ready for my desktop for 12 years. It has been ready for my wife's desktop for 10 years. It has been ready for my sons' (aged 12 and 8) desktops for 10 and 6 years respectively. I'll admit that my family members are probably smarter than you but they are not geniuses. My wife got a new laptop 6 months ago so I left Windows XP on a partition for her so she could try it out. She hates it because it never behaves the same way twice and virus checking kills the machine.
unless she's ready to deal with Linux life. The same with anybody else -- you're not going to see massive amounts of absolute Linux beginners deciding that they're going to buy a Linux PC from Dell when they don't know what Linux is. When I talk to civilians about Linux with the implication that they might use it, they get this panicked look and say "I have a hard enough time with what I've already got, so don't change it." I point out to them that What they've already got has a limited shelf-life since they're on XP and Vista is out, and then they just look nervous and change the subject.
/home that they all use, and the option of deleting any of the distros that isn't wanted. Support of the OS is a red-herring and can be handled by the ways others have spoken of elsewhere in the thread. But, again, this is going to be for Linux users who want to buy from Dell (for reasons beyond my ken), and not for Dell customers who think it would be fun to play with Linux for the first time by buying a Linux PC from Dell.
I've got a few understanding that the learning curve going from XP to Linux isn't much more than going from XP to Vista, and, once they do the learning curve on Linux, they're dealing with a system where change is smoother and more incremental -- things that you learn in Linux tend to stay true longer than things that you learn in Windows. And I think Vista's going to be the piece that's going to, eventually, push some of them over to at least give Linux a shot. It won't be for all of them, but, with what most of them do with computers at work everyday, they simply don't need anything that they can't get for free under Linux. And, if they get comfortable with it at work, there's a lot better chance they'll try it at home sometime, probably starting with a multi-boot setup -- there's really no reason anybody who can operate the Lilo or Grub menu couldn't handle a multi-boot setup.
Frankly, I don't see why Dell couldn't work out deals with a number of the top distros to have a basic install of each of them with drivers for all the included hardware working and set them up in a multi-boot setup with a shared
Is the demand there now? It's hard to say, really, until someone tries it.
I remember with the Amiga how many of us wrote letters to Software, Etc. or other companies begging them to support our computers. And then the demand never materialized as we claimed it would.The Amiga was a cool little box, but, seriously the situation is not at all comparable with Linux. The Amiga never really made any impact outside of hobbyists, musicians and artists. It certainly never had the likes of IBM pushing it, or HP selling multi thousand-unit orders to corporate desktops. And from a business point of view, it never had a fraction of the sales that Linux has -- and that even if you consider the total sales of Amiga + AmigaOS and compare it only to the sales of Linux operating systems, completely ignoring all of the hardware and all of the unpaid-for Linux (i.e. most of it). A big part of that is the fact that the market as a whole is so much bigger, but another part is that Linux has better acceptance and more market share.
The bottom line is that there is significantly more demand for Linux than there ever was for the Amiga or AmigaOS.
I'm fairly certainly Dell understands this. They've been around a long time. At one time they even release their own version of System V which was highly regarded in the industry. So they're not unfamiliar with Unix. They've also at various times offered machines without operating systems, or even with Linux. But the demand wasn't thereRight, the demand wasn't there, especially since Unix was primarily the domain of high-end workstations and minicomputers, and Dell has always been a PC shop. The demand for Unix on PC hardware has increased hugely, and Linux has the lion's share of it.
I'm not going to try to tell you that I know there *is* sufficient demand for Dell to make money selling Linux boxes, but it's far from clear that there isn't sufficient demand, either. The only way to know for sure is to try it.
As for open source advocates starting up their own company to sell machines. It's been tried. It was called VA Linux. They changed their name, abandoned selling computers and now run sourceforge.Uh huh, and do you know *why* they stopped selling hardware? It wasn't because they couldn't make money at it, because they made a lot of money at it for almost 10 years. In part what drove them out of the business was -- get this -- Dell selling machines with Linux pre-installed on them. Dell is hard to compete with.
That, however, was all in the Linux server space, and now we're talking about desktops. Is the time ripe for selling Linux on the desktop? I think it is, actually. The volume will obviously be small compared to Windows, but I think it will be enough to sustain the business and make it profitable. Hopefully Dell will do it so we can all find out what the results really are.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"In the end he suggests that those lobbying Dell for such a solution go out and put together a company and offer one themselves."
Then they dumped the hardware, started selling sourceforge, their stock tanked, and most of their stockholders got f*cked. I believe there was at least one lawsuit over the whole affair.
So maybe that's not a great idea for a business opportunity.
Absolute statements are never true
Now tell my Dad how to fix the hard-coded DST in his $50 "atomic" wall clock.
If he has one of the older Oregon Scientific clocks, this is from their website.
" 3/9/2007
Daylight Saving Time
Because of the change to Daylight Saving Time, our RM323 and RM932 clocks will not update to Daylight Saving Time until the traditional April 1 date (first Sunday in April). To ensure that your clock keeps the proper time automatically, please disable the radio-controlled clock function and set the clock time manually."
I think their advice is way off. I think it is better to simply turn off DST and change time zones one to the East. That work around does not work if you are in the Eastern time zone as you can't select the next time zone to the East.
If he has another model, check the manufacture website.
The truth shall set you free!
Could you help me? I had my ISP tell me to ping a server, but I couldn't find the icon. Luckily, they were able to get me to a command line to use the ping command in XP. Where's the icon located?
Thanks,
Grandma
Have you used linux in the last 5 years? Save slackware, every distro I have seen had a GUI app that did at least those things
You haven't seen Ubuntu then, which for some reason is still lacking such a thing. OTOH, the new Xorg starts to become so good in autoconfiguration that it is able to run without an xorg.conf
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Why can't Dell just roll its own distro -- essentially do an Apple. Customize the OS to what their customers want (not what they think their customers want), but make it so that it's easy for power-users to toy around in. They'll know the ins and outs of it better than anyone else, so they can support it.
- Mike
--<Mike>--
Same thing here, Do you have Blackberrys too? Makes you tear your hair out
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Purchasing a new graphics card, opening your box, and installing it, is harder than editing the xorg.conf file. So, maybe you should also add "the user must NEVER EVER EVER, any any circumstances, have to either to upgrade hardware," in which case, I would like to where you buy your USB video cards.
We support [name distro here], everyone else is on their own. That would be an enormous boost to the named distro, and would cover Dell. Just one thing, 15 years ago, Dell supported Unix System VR4 on their machines. Linux will be much easier.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I'm curious as to why Dell just doesn't sell high quality high end machines with Linux on them. Most linux distro's support med to high end equipment in machines. So why not just do those instead. The price would be similar to an equally configured windows machine sure. But you would have less failure rates. Essentially making high quality linux machines for mainstream rather than the current trend of pc box makers to make cheap linux machines which mainstream users see as a cheap machine and find out that its really out of thier league.
Personally I prefer Linux and I don't even own a Windows license but I would never recommend Linux to my mom who still struggles getting the basics of Windows. Nor would she choose a PC with Linux instead of Windows.
Ultimately, the infrastructure will make or break whatever OEM decides to finally sell computers with Linux on them from the factory. Software needs to be as easy to install in Windows... so users can download all the spyware they know and love with the simplicity of downloading some executable that will do the rest for them (please note sarcasm re: spyware). Other than that, they need to train call centers, or at least have some documentation for them to refer to other than "Unplug the modem... wait 10 seconds... now plug it back in"
Also, Linspire tried cutting deals with Tigerdirect (not that I would ever purchase a Systemax) but they were offering Linspire on them from the get go... don't think it worked out to well, but hopefully they learned something, and maybe they will try it again.
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
It's not per pop its a few billion so long as Dell gets X number of windows out the door, they dont meet the required sales they pay extra, they sell more well... good for them
If Dell sold linux, Microsoft would be quite offended and feel it wont get X windows out or raise the number dell needs to get out to an unrealistic number.
First, I could see myself setting up a nice command-line Linux installation for my grandma if she were still around. Of course, she used to program Fortran on big UNIX boxes when I was still in preschool... (Yes, I got a chance to see some of those systems in action.)
A better example is what happened when I migrated my parents to Red Hat Linux 6.1 (back in 1999). They had been using Windows 95 at the time. I installed it, configured it, made sure everything they needed was accessible, and set it up next to their Windows system. The tech support calls practically stopped, and they started using the Linux system more than their Windows system.
Linux isn't hard to use. There are things people are not used to ("How come Comet Cursors doesn't work?") bit in general, non-techies I know who have made the jump are fairly unlikely to go back.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Linux is a piece-meal OS, and this is one of the primary reasons why people who use it, got it in the first place. Similarly, it's the same crowd who are going to want to build a custom PC... not a Dell.
Until you can convince a sizable portion of the mainstream population, for which detailed custom-built machines are not a priority, that they need Linux... you're going to have a tough time selling a linux distro to them. Apple did it, but they had to lock in one propriatary distro and make it into almost a whole different animal. As much as some people don't want to believe this... it's going to take something similar to sell ANY linux distro to mainstream users.
Basically, the reasons why power users love Linux so much are precisely the same reasons why mainstream users won't use it. We're just going to have to face that cold, hard, fact, and get over ourselves... only then will Linux previal.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
The real problems come because every one of them wants a TV tuner card :/ I know enough to know that those never seem to work properly, but under Vista, it's even worse. We're getting degraded audio especially, and sometimes degraded video, even though at least some of the files work just fine on other systems (that is, with some videos from other sources).
I'm not sure if Media Player is just broken, if we've somehow triggered Vista's DRM to intentionally degrade things, or what...
All I know is that it's a pain in the ass to support; even trivial stuff like helping them search for where options have moved to is confusing. It took us way too long to figure out that that Word logo thing in Office was the new File menu, so we couldn't directly open files very easily for a while. That one is especially stupid because we were all used to having a non-functional program logo up there, but now it's a menu. Just what usability "expert" made up that stupid thing!? I guess the tabbed part with all the other menu options was okay, but there's no way in hell I want to "upgrade" to it, ever.
I think you misunderstand what the man pages are for...
You imagine them to be a "how do I do this" reference. In reality, they're a "what does this command do, and what exactly is the effect of each flag it takes"
manpages were created with the assumption that you knew exactly what you wanted to do, and just needed the syntax to do it
PocketPC's here. Given that the other guy has no trouble with Outlook, my hypothesis is this: it's portable devices that have buggy DST (even with the patch). When you sync, the mobile device messes up some of your appointments, then Outlook accepts the mobile device's updates so now they're messed up in Outlook too. This is only my guess.
Oh please.
Windows:
1. Unplug everything, open up box
2. Unscrew retention screw from card
3. Remove old card
4. Put in new card
5. Put screw back on, close box, plug screen back in
6. Boot up
7. Wait a few seconds... "windows has found a new device"... "your new hardware is configured"... "the resolution is too low. Do you want Windows to increase it?"
8. Click "Yes"
9. All done.
Linux:
1. Unplug everything, open up box
2. Unscrew retention screw from card
3. Remove old card
4. Put in new card
5. Put screw back on, close box, plug screen back in
6. Boot up
7. Screen goes into power saving mode
8. Press ctrl-alt-backspace to kill X (you knew how to do that already, right?)
9. Pull out your *other* computer (you have one of those, right?) and google for help. Ignore all helpful suggestions to "RTFM n00b".
10. Try solution you found
11. Go back to step 7 until one of the solution works
12. All done!
You're right, it's *so* hard to do with Windows!
You haven't seen Ubuntu then, which for some reason is still lacking such a thing.
I think Ubuntu would work quite well for the average "grandma" user...setting up simple things is very easy, and there's even an update reminder thing like Windows and OSX so you don't fall behind on updates.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
If Dell had gone ahead and introduced a system when they had the hype in their court, whatever they released would have *become* the standard. Of course, most people with a clue (which includes some suits at Dell, I am certain) realize that linux distributions are not nearly as different and incompatible as some fuddites would have you believe.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I agree with you. The command line is very scary.
Also,
if books are ever going to return to mainstream, they need to replace all those words with pictures.
You really shouldn't equate having computer-specific knowledge with having intelligence. Just because some guy doesn't care enough to learn more about his computer than how to get work done doesn't mean he lacks intelligence.
But sometimes you have to do that under Windows too. Like editing %WINDIR%\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts to work around a flaky WINS server, or edit %SystemDrive%\boot.ini to set "/usepmtimer" if you have an AMD64 X2 where the core TSCs aren't in sync.
Not to mention editing the dreaded registry. Editing a text config file is often peanuts compared to that; at least most config files are annotated with comments.
Regards,
--
*Art
The real reason Dell won't use a Linux Distro is: they can't get their spyware to work properly.
True story. I recently setup a Dell PC. Loaded an Anti-Spyware program (AdAware) on it and updated it from my USB Key. First scan turned up 47 pieces of spyware "pre-installed". I had never plugged it into the network.
Who wants to waste time learning how to use software to combat problems that shouldn't be there in the first place? Anyone who uses an OS that needs a virus checker is a retard. Anyone who doesn't go looking for alternatives is a retard. Anyone who happily gives his money to the richest man on the planet is a retard.
There's no way in hell I would ever offer support for Linux unless I absolutely had to. Since Dell hangs their hat on customer service, adding Linux to the mix would cause too many headaches for it to be worth it for the small market segment. With Microsoft, you just take what they give you and put it on the systems and then occasionally(frequently) tell people to reinstall if their problem seems the tiniest bit convoluted. My small company pays for Red Hat because we're required to for a contract system. Getting support from them is a nightmare. I've used 3 different mainstream distros of Linux and not a single one of them is really easy to use. Sure, if you're already an expert, Linux is easy. If you're not, Linux is hard because it's still based on an old system of using 100 billion little command line commands and arguments. It's not the LEAST BIT user friendly compared to the more mainstream OS's.
Windows might not be super easy, but Linux can be about as user friendly as manually writing 64-bit opcodes using nothing but Debug.com
The big difference from Dell's perspective is that Windows is supported by their hardware suppliers. Linux distros are supported by a bunch of 12 year olds with A.D.D. As much as I love Linux for server stuff, I still can't bear to use it for a desktop. Every few months I'll get all giddy and try a distro, but every single time I hit the same brick wall: X. X sucks. X works half the time. X struggles with hardware acceleration. X can't even figure out what resolution it should drive my LCD. X segfaults if it doesn't like my configs, or my kernel, or the sum of the square root of the 2's complement of gettime(). At least Windows' GUI loads up 9 times out of 10, and when it doesn't it at least has the decency to tell you "Unmountable_boot_volume". Right now, X is unprofessional and until someone comes up with a stable, reliable and used-friendly modern graphical desktop for the masses, Linux will remain a hacker's toy. Hell, even Apple can do Unix better than Linux.. how sad is that ?
Linux could be a killer OS, but no one wants to step up to the plate. I look at the amount of work that goes into the mainstream distros, all the package maintenance and testing... if we could cull some of these distros and apply the developers' time toward improving the code instead of designing yet another shiny tarball metadata format, we might actually see more indie shops offering Linux preinstallation. Ubuntu has come a long way, but it stands alone, and only because of the tremendous effort put into that specific distro, but guess what: it still relies on pokey binary-only graphics drivers, and the often tempermental kernel. I still don't understand why we have version-sensitive kernel modules in this day and age, when Microsoft has had a well-defined driver model for well over a decade. Heck, Windows 2000 and XP can use many of the same device drivers thanks to WDM.... so why don't we have that ? We, the brilliant hackers who dream in code and feel at one with the compiler ? These are all reasons why Linux isn't a household name, so when are we going to do something about it ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
If buying a PC from Dell with Linux is more expensive then the exact same PC with windows pre-installed then why not buy a PC with pre-installed windows, take pictures of yourself declining the windows license and ask for the windows license money back.
I remember a slashdot article a while back doing this with a Dell Laptop and they sent him a refund without any questions
Not only do you get exactly the same cheap PC hardware you get with the windows pre-install. You also get to save $50 on the license refund.
I was configuring a PowerEdge server not 30 minutes ago and they offered Red Hat or SUSE...
If anyone ever said "Bzzt, wrong answer" to my face, in person, I would have beaten them to a bloody pulp.
Hopefully for you, we'll never meet =)
We need better linux distros.
Where can I get a well supported full featured distro that doesn't remove 90% of the features from programs like XMMS, Mplayer and ffmpeg? (MP3 support, WMA support, DVD playback, RealAudio support etc etc)
When you upgrade you don't have to edit any configuration files, you only have to edit them once to get it working for your machine.
.conf files as you mention.
If Linux came pre-installed (which it already does. Just not by dell) then the idea is that the configuration files would already be set for your system by the manufacturer so you would not have to edit
Everything would be setup to go for that specific machine out the box. You could even have a disk which reinstalls the operating system still with everything ready to go specific for that machine.
When you find a developer who is willing to pay the license fees, hell even Microsoft won't pay the licensing fees.
Maybe I'm just speaking my mind.. but why not adopt the same business approach to Apple. Mac OS X (Darwin Linux) is nothing more than a an altered distro compiled for specific hardware of their choosing.
Dell can write code and support their existing hardware because all components are generic to their specifications.
My 2c worth.
Let me show you how to get Nvidia Gfx drivers working on Ubuntu..
Sooo hard? Also Ubuntu automatically updates your graphics drivers so you never have to keep tabs on if your using the latest drivers.
I've yet to find a Linux help web site where people say "RTFM n00b."
I've seen lots of Windows boards like that, though. And lots of Xbox/game sites like that.
Strange.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
No, my XP system also updated everything without a hitch. I wish I could have said the same for my MythTV box. Given that it's running a fairly up-to-date version of Knoppix, I would have expected that the timezone files would also have been up to date, but such was not the case.
On the other hand, the Gentoo box running Asterisk experienced no issues.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
What the potentioal Linux box buyer would like to know is whether the box will work with Linux or not. The only way to know that is if the box comes with Linux preinstalled, and there is a list of all the devices that works, what chipset they use, and if the driver for the device is part of the standard Linux kernel.
If I was Dell I would have chosen Ubuntu, as it is known to be easy to use for desktop purposes. People, like me who doesn't like Ubuntu, would have a good starting point if they
wanted to install their favorite distro. E.g. they would be able to examine driver settings and such before they tried another distro. The people who allready have a favorite distro and are brave enough to install it, are not likely to need much support from Dell, and it wouldn't take long before the internet was full of info on various quirks if any needed to get most distros running, so I don't think they would be all that disapointed when Dell said
"Sorry Sir, we only support Ubuntu". The main thing is that they support some kind of Linux.
The current situation where they ship FreeDOS on their non windows boxes is quite meaningless. I doubt that there is somebody that installs it. It is only there so that they can say they ship the box with an OS as not shipping an OS would invite to software piracy.
So, please Dell! Why not replace the FreeDOS disk with Ubuntu, and tell potential customers the specs of your hardware
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
Am I missing something, or did he specifically say he can't speak for ubuntu? If I understand correctly you don't touch the .conf to get ubuntu running, but it offers no tools to change whatever configuration it comes up with? So therefore unless you add a monitor or whatever you wouldn't need to modify the .conf?
Okay. Enough of this bullshit. Since when has Windows been as easy as 1..2..3? Ever? Since when does everything always work and not require the help of the neighborhood computer guy, or family computer guy?
I hear someone say "HOLY FUCK nobody could EVER fucking edit a HOSTS file!! LINUX SUCKS! It will never catch on!" Enough of that shit. There's plenty of times on Windows where you have to make registry changes, boot.ini changes, driver fixes because of blue screen crashes, even if you just plug in a USB device sometimes.
Face it: No matter what system you use, there's going to be some shitty troubleshooting work and that will require some expertise. It's NOT harder on Linux, and I venture that it's always possible to avoid the "reinstall OS" option on any Linux system.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I'd love to see Dell offering every customer an option to check a box when ordering a computer so that their new machine comes with the Windows version du jour but also includes a partition with the consumer's choice of one of a list of Linux distros. Stipulate that Dell will only offer direct support for the Windows OS without the customer paying for a Linux support contract. Offer Ubuntu, Fedora, Opensuse, Mandriva or Freespire on a 15 GB partition with a 1 GB swap partition and a 20 GB home partition, leaving plenty of room for Windows, even on a low end 80 GB system. For a premium people could choose a commercial Linux like Linspire, Xandros or Mandriva Discovery (RHEL and SUSE are too expensive). Dell could even charge a reasonable amount, say $10, to provide the basic dual boot option. I'm sure hundreds of thousands of folks would pay for a backup operating system that was touted as more secure and had a free office suite and 3D eye candy options. I'd recommend the option to friends and relatives.
People want the more options, not fewer. They want to be able to run all their old software, Photoshop, games, financial software, and have an OS that has an outside chance of supporting their cheapo Win-peripherals. But millions of folks have heard good things about Linux, as well. With ntfs-3g and Windows equivalents Windows and Linux can write to each others partition, which would make things easier (and more dangerous). But operating system files could be hidden from users by default, just the way Windows and Ubuntu Edgy do now. What the heck, include free VMWARE or KVM so the customer can run her installed Linux from within Windows and vice versa. And provide a GUI program that will allow Windows users to reclaim their Linux partitions for Bill Gates if they decide they don't have the cobbles to boot open source. As Albert Schweitzer said, let a thousand flowers bloom.
Of course this scenario ignores the fact that Microsoft wouldn't put up with these shenanigans for a second. But that's why we should have strong anti-trust laws.
And even moreso if they actually are bill gates! Ziinnng!!!
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I'm totally unqualified to comment, but how much plug-and-play with the consumer-device universe does Mac OS X provide? Do they have PCI/AGP slots? They obviously support the "standard" usb items, like mass storage controller, and keyboard/mouse. But what about cameras that don't present as a mass storage device? Do most camera makers supply drivers? If every manufacturer that produced Mac drivers made linux drivers I think we'd be better off, but I think we'd still be very careful buying hardware for our linux machines.
I spent the last week speccing out some Dell workstations and servers using the configurator on the Dell website. For all of them, I had the choice between Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. What's the story here?
Except it has no clue about my completely standard Dell FP2000 monitor on an nvidia card, so each time I install it I have to edit the file to get anything more than 1024x768.
c++;
This is just ludicrous. Since when do mainstream users change video cards? Since when do mainstream users install Apache? Changing your hardware is user-friendly, but editing a text file is not? Editing the Windows registry is user-friendly, but editing a text file is not?
You're dreaming.
What are you talking about? The manual actually explains what the optional arg to --backup can be.
The version control method may be selected via the
--backup option or through the VERSION_CONTROL environment variable.
Here are the values:
none, off
never make backups (even if --backup is given)
numbered, t
make numbered backups
existing, nil
numbered if numbered backups exist, simple otherwise
simple, never
always make simple backups
What does it matter, given that the chances of Dell ever shipping you the right thing appear to be rapidly approaching zero?
Dell need only support one Linux distribution, but it must also insist on hardware for which there are Linux drivers that have feature and speed parity with the Windows drivers. Then if someone wants another distribution, go for it; it shouldn't be any problem as long as they make sure they use only hardware that has full Linux support. What they would give up then is Dell support, aside from hardware defects.
Yeah, I missed that he had a said he hadn't tried ubuntu. I just wanted to mention that Ubuntu does not have such a tool (which is weird). And whether or not you have to touch the conf to get Ubuntu running totally depends on what you want it to do. Dual monitor stuff (like the very common requirement to attach a video projector to a laptop) is a major hassle in Ubuntu. (I'm saying that as a very happy Ubuntu user)
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Linux PCs, No OS Preinstalled PCs, why are they more expensive than windows PCs at such retail outlets?
The answer is "Substracted value".
Some computers come with "value add" software - various useful programs that serve their purpose and increase the value of the computer. Say, you get a PC with a DVD writer, and Nero preinstalled. The seller pays extra to have it bundled with the PC, the buyer pays premium for the PC.
But if the program is a demo version, a promotional product, with purpose of getting the customer to buy more only, the authors pay the seller to include it preinstalled on the PC. It's crap you'll likely delete ASAP because it disturbs, distracts and takes up resources, while giving very little in return. Authors pay the seller. The seller reduces the price of the PC. With 30 or so of such preinstalled, it pays the whole price of MS Windows OEM, and some. Therefore the seller can add Windows "free" and reduce the price even more. With no OS preinstalled, or with Linux (or with clean install of Windows, for that matter) there's no "Value substract" software preinstalled, therefore you pay the full price of the hardware.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I don't know where this tech support BS comes from.
Can't you just buy a Dell (nice cheap reliable hardware) with linux (nice cheap reliable software) and agree to just fix the software problems yourself? They won't charge you for an OS you don't ever call tech support. Hell, they should charge you less for the hardware... but I think it's only fair to let them take the profit.
How 'bout it, Dell? Can we agree to be reasonable here?
That would be nice, but it's a higher standard than exists for Windows where sometimes the fix involves tweaks with regedit and such non-user friendly stuff. The catch for Linux is that it won't become mainstream until grandma's grandchild is likely using it so she can call him (or her) when she runs into that sort of problem, and that likely won't be the case until it's mainstream. Perhaps some billionaire can fund a massive ad campaign aimed at the youth market suggesting that Linux is really cool and you'll be immensely popular with the opposite sex if you use it.
Loose lips lose spit.
Debian Etch:
aptitude install nvidia
OK, I could have used a GUI shell, but why make more work for myself?
Tech Public Policy stuff
Dell is a body with no head, there is no use talking to it.
... but hardware makes people want to pay. Nobody likes to pay for software, especially not utility or operating system software. It's the PC manufacturer who should pay for the OS and utilities and the fact that you get that great software for free on their box is why you buy their box instead of a Dell. The reason this is news to PC makers and many PC users is that they don't know what competition looks like. They're used to getting whatever Microsoft feeds them on their new PC.
Linux should not only come installed on your computer, it should come free with the hardware, like Mac OS X. The software install is the sizzle that sells the steak. Software features make people want to buy
The only sensible competition in a world of commodity PC's is the software install. If the CPU and RAM and HD and so on are all going to be standardized then what's left to customize? How about the 100,000,000,000 bits on the HD? That's basically all Apple is doing. They design a great PC first, with uniform hardware and no questionable parts and the right array of ports for the life of the computer but the real magic happens when they put on the best default software install in the world, with everything from iLife and QuickTime to Apache and Ruby on Rails.
A great selling feature that a Linux PC vendor could offer is that their box boots up to a non-Microsoft desktop, but then has a virtualizer ready to go for a person to install Windows if they want to, like the Classic feature of Mac OS X.
There is a lot of work to do to get the PC market healthy again. Telling users, "here you install it" is a joke.
Since when do mainstream users change video cards?
He's talking about gamer-types who don't know anything more about their systems than the latest "gfx" card reviews tell them. The one's who like to play around without understanding what they're doing, and then like to throw tantrums and blame the OS/driver vendor/guide writer/mom when they screw up.
And guess what? On my Novell SLED 10 + Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop, I haven't had to edit *anything* in the system - even to get ATI 3D graphics with XGL running.
Yes, he's dreaming.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
If I understand correctly you don't touch the .conf to get ubuntu running, but it offers no tools to change whatever configuration it comes up with? So therefore unless you add a monitor or whatever you wouldn't need to modify the .conf?
A utoconfiguration
Sorry, the part about autoconfig in my commment was not so much related to Ubuntu. I don't know how this will work out since AFAICT autoconfig is very new functionality in Xorg 7.2 and it is not yet used in Ubuntu (although 7.04 Feisty will include Xorg 7.2). I think the idea is that in the long run there is no xorg.conf at all, you just plug in your hardware and it works.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDownUnder/BOFs/Xorg
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
In the popular Linux magazines like "Linux Journal", I see a number of dealers who sell boxes with various versions of Linux preloaded. If there is a high demand for such boxes, why are people not buying from these guys and making them the next Dell?
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
If you want Windows to be user-friendly, one of the absolute must-haves is that the user must NEVER NEVER NEVER, under any circumstances:
Follow me
If you want Linux to be mainstream-friendly, one of the absolute must-haves is that the user must NEVER EVER EVER, any any circumstances, have to either (1) edit a text config file by hand, or (2) use the command line.
In that case, you need to add:
(3) Edit the registry (and risk borking your entire machine in the process). This is of course where MS stores all it's config stuff instead of config files. So how is it different having to edit the registry instead of a config file?
You do realise that Windows fails this test.
Ever stop to think
Just like you never ever ever, under any circumstances, have to use the command line or edit text config files or the registry by hand in windows?
Or in OSX for that matter?
I agree that there is too much of it while using any Linux-distribution so far, but saying that you never ever must have to, is an almost impossible task.
Even in Windows and OSX you have to get gritty and edit all kinds of system files from time to time. Ever tried getting ati's Windows-driver-package working on a laptop, for an example?
Or tried using a non-apple graphics-card in a Mac?
Chances are, if you've bought a brand-name computer and you're a mainstream user, you'll have a hard time getting 3'rd party hardware working correctly, even though Windows now a days is decently good at handling this if your hardware isn't too new or too old or too "embedded" (laptop hardware)
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
[i]If you want Linux to be mainstream-friendly, one of the absolute must-haves is that the user must NEVER EVER EVER, any any circumstances, have to either (1) edit a text config file by hand, or (2) use the command line.
No exceptions, no "most of the time" situation, no "power users only" weasel words. Config files and command lines are OK for developers, but not for mainstream users -- end of story.[/i]
Hey buddy, please don't take what I'm about to say personally; it's not directed at you, more at the state of the industry in general. OK BEGIN OLD MAN RANT NOW
Back during the transition from Win 3.1 to Win 95, I was doing tech support at a Big Ten University. I was showing metal workers, professors, gardeners, kids, and everybody else how to use their computers (and I was pretty green then myself).
Believe me; with proper, patient instruction your Grandma can enter, by hand, the proper command string to get her modem to work in Win3.1. She can build a batch file for proper GUI startup and such. Just because you've grown up without the need to do this stuff doesn't mean the average person can't, or never has.
I have a buddy who can't start my old Corolla (my "spare" car), and doesn't see how people could ever have remembered to pump the gas pedal once when starting their car. I have another buddy who doesn't think that normal "users" could possibly drive a stick-shift (manual transmission) for everyday usage.
Somewhere along the line everybody was convinced (I blame AOL) that you just couldn't understand how to use a computer unless everything you did was clicking on a picture. Somewhere along the way, society convinced itself that nobody could fucking read. From the controls on your devices and your car, to the things you do on the computer, to ordering fast food it just became too damn difficult for anybody to read, speak, or understand several words strung together. That became "hard". Now, I realize that sometimes pictographs make it easier to market a product globally, but we (at least here in the 'States) have gone over the edge with it.
This was also about the same time those damn "DUMMIES" instruction books came out. It suddenly became fashionable to say "Hey, I'm a total fucking idiot! Please tell me how to do everything in the simplest terms possible, or else I'll never understand".
Now, I'm not advocating a return to the days when computers were a pain in the ass to configure or use. All I'm saying is that (much like people used their car's heat and A/C before it was just "blue seated dudered dude") people tend to be as stupid as society allows them to be, or tells them they are. If Dell support tells your grandma "editing this text file is easy, here you can even cut-and-paste this", then she'll believe it's easy.
For pete's sake, our grandparents built the industrialized world and our parents streamlined it and made fit reasonably pleasant to live in. I think they can probably handle using "gedit" now and again.
END OLD MAN RANT
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
Well, there I went and hit "Submit" because my dog wanted to pee, and I never finished that thought about the guys I know who don't understand how people might have use cars without an automatic transmission or proper fuel injection; what I meant to add to the end of that was "my grandmother knows how to use both of these- so does your grandmother".
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
Uhuh, so what do you tell them when they complain that their games have suddenly become unplayably slow?
Ah yes, they might need to install a driver of course. Well, no problem there, just install it and go. What? It didn't work? Ah you switched from ATI to nVidia, well then you first need to uninstall your ATI driver of course.
On the other hand I need to do the same on my Linux system but it's no more difficult than installing the "kmod-nvidia" package.
Unless you think configuring using the registry, the necessity of the installation of antivirus and firewalls (with all their arcane messages and terminology) and all what implies using a Windows machine is infused at birth.
Some folks around here seem to think that Windows is *naturally* easy.
I have got news for you guys, it isn't. But this is masked by the myriad of people mildly familiar with it.
Grandmas that are introduced to Linux as their first computing experienc (hi mum!) can cope perfectly well with the tool of the penguin, and people suggesting otherwise are patronizing ageists.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When did Dell change it's policy? I bought a fully installed Dell workstation with red hat 9.0 fully installed about 2 years ago. Worked right out of the box and ran (runs) like a charm. What am I not seeing? Or is the the OP a troll?
I agree that Linux will never reach the mainstream, and I agree that it's at least partly for the reason you give. But Linux shouldn't be dumbed down in an effort to win over people whose cardinal demand is that they not be expected to learn anything. Should things be made easier? Yes, of course. But Linux is powerful because of, not despite, the command line.
K3B is great, Kile is great, but if we consider these to be the point of Linux then we're stuck thinking that all Linux has to offer is that it isn't Windows. But it's the command-line tools like grep, sed, find, and most importantly the ability to pipe one into the other creatively, that makes Linux worth using at all. If the GUI tools and eye candy were all Linux offered, I'd jump ship immediately. Even though I'm no command-line expert, I dumped Windows because I wanted to use an OS that was built with that philosophy.
It matters because soon as a major PC manufacturer starts shipping machines without the Windows tax, we can finally get some real competition in the OS world (how ironic that if I want to try free Linux, I usually have to buy Windows - which comes with my PC - and I can't get a discount if I don't want Windows).
Basically - Dell don't offer it because - and I have to be careful here- Dell get a volume discount on the Windows licenses they preinstall. If they start to offer Linux, they'll fall into a lower discount level on Windows and suddenly be uncompetitive in the crucial Windows market.
My experience (in a slightly different sector) of such deals is that they always coincidentally have break points remarkably close to what happens when the reseller starts dealing with a competitor of the dominant vendor. Of course, MS cannot charge Dell more for Windows just because Dell happens to ship some Linux machines, but it can double the price of Windows if Dell falls below a certain sale volume - which they can vary any time they like.
The solution? Manufacturers could [be forced to] [by France?] publish the embedded cost of software which ships with each machine so MS shenanigans could be spotted, but I'm sure plenty of fellow readers will point out the impracticality of that. The alternative is whistle blowers...
The linux box I'm posting from, which is a constantly updated Ubuntu, failed to move ahead one hour. What's worse, after playing around for a few minutes I can't find a gui interface to change the time. Granny would be hosed.
Play Command HQ online
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
You are correct. Though the description is about 40 lines of text below the switch and it isn't naturally clear that it belongs to something way up at the top of the man page. I stand by my original assertion that man pages are difficult to use. Maybe I'm just an idiot, but perhaps the description of what OPTION means should be somewhat near to it.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not, but here are some information:
The desktop is a different story: Just 3% of India's PCs use Linux. Still, that's about triple the level in the U.S. [source] English is spoken as a second language by approximately 20-25 million Indians. [source]c++;
Pretty much every time I called DELL with a problem they told me to Recover the PC. So I don't see the problem with having Linux on it. There are 2 options. 1, They sell a PC with a linux dist installed that has hardware support for what you are running, with this you will get 2 CD/DVD's 1 Recovery, and 1 Diagnostics. Dell then provides support for the hardware but not for the software, if you call with a problem, they will tell you to boot the diagnostics, and if it comes clean, no further support. 2. You will need a support staff that has a lot more geeks in them, who knows the ins and outs of the Dist of linux you sold with the PC. I worked in Callcenter, and well I was one of the few who actually had both Tech skills and spoke some languages, most where hired because they spoke a language, then trained to follow a script. I think Dell will go for option 1, otherwise it is to expensive to sell a PC with Linux.
I really don't think so, people hae pointed out in the past that the cost of an OS is not the unit price, but the cost of hiring staff to maintain it (hence many people say linux is cheaper overall...). Regardless of the religious debates, if *Dell* wanted to sell linux *and* offer tech support... think what would happen when someone called in.
:)
First they'd have to determine which linux was installed, then determine which package was faulty, then determine which version of that package was installed, then determine what to do about it. The permutations are trult horrific. At least with Windows, you have a far smaller set of options to deal with. That in itself makes the cost of supporting Windows significantly cheaper.
Now, if Dell decided to reduce the options and only support RedHat (say), loaded with the latest packages only, then they'd have a much easier time - comparable to the Windows support. But then Dell would get criticised for not offering Ubuntu too
Personally, I think Dell should offer Centos support on its servers - they are very widely used in the web hosting industry, and Centos seems to be the most common distro for that. Dell would capture a significant part of its customer base that way.
Why bother recording it? Just get it from Pirate Bay like everyone else.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
That said, I just use Kubuntu and install that support after installing it. Of course if you find that too difficult, you can ask the community for help (Forums | irc://irc.freenode.net/kubuntu - IRC) and if you find that too difficult or don't want to bother.
You are of course always free to go out and buy a copy of SuSE Linux or perhaps Mandriva. I've used both commercial (pay) versions of these distributions and I can assure you that they support this out of the box.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Jack should have some idea how hard it is to support Windows since his column in the Guardian is an advice column telling people how to fix their Windows problems. From time to time people ask him whether or not they should switch to Linux and he always advises them to stick with Windows so it's fair to say he is a bit of an adovocate for Microsoft.
Agreed, and when such company starts to bundle Linux it wont be any of the 100 distros but the 101 that *they* will create based on one of the 100.
Seriously, the only way a company will provide Linux on its desktops will be if there is a company like Redhat or Linspire backing it. I would really go for Linspire or Xandros, but it will really be a difficult time when the Luser that bought the computer buys his Logitech quickcam for notebooks deluxe and finds that it just does not work after connecting it and that she cant even use it to video-chat with his pals on Messenger or Skype.
And I imagine the face of such people after they called to the client service and the guy over the phone tells them "Yes ma'am, the problem is not with the Machine, the problem is of Skype"..."Yes ma'am I know your friends can do it with their HPs but...", "No maam no need to be rude, what you have to do is use Ekiga or XXX[insert Linux video chatting software name] to video-chat"... "MMMmmno maam, you will have to tell your friends to use the same program too...okay maam?, ma'am, hello?"
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Ubuntu:
In the panel you go to system,
then administration
then network tools.
If you don't like my sig then don't read it.
I changed my monitor, and unfortunately the "new" one did not support refresh frequencies as high as the old one's.
Linux: Ctrl+Alt+2, vim, lower some values, gdm restart and I was done.
In windows, it was like three restarts (normal mode, safe mode, change settings, normal mode, no-it-didn't-change, safe mode again, remove-hardware, add-new-hardware, normal mode). Having to do the restarts blindly after each failed setting. (Dont't get me wrong: it wasn't me who told BS to windows, it was the os who thought it knew better and did not.)
So yes, I do feel kinda "flamey" by just recalling the event and reading your lines.
(And yes, probably should've RTFM, but just couldn'f find my reading glasses, grandson.)
Their cheapest desktops and laptops are bundled with vista and 1-year support. No choice of linux there. Those are the models purchased by the masses.
It's true that costlier models have a linux option, but that's far from a level playing field. The way things stand, if you want a cheap PC from Dell, you pay the MS tax and you get no promise of hardware compatibility from Dell. That does suck.
It's amazing the kind of crappy responses there are to this post... The reason people don't want linux is a combination of the parent's observation and the attitude of the linux users, which is very much evident in the two dozen less-than-positive responses to it.
Obviously, I'd already done that before even calling, but I was a little surprised that command lines were part of the standard troubleshooting procedure in Windows. I've been Linux-only for years now, and from all of the "OMG! Windows has a GUI! Linux must eliminate the command line!" stuff I hear on this forum, I guess I'd assumed that there would be no need for such an "antiquated" interface.
Maybe asking someone to type something and read the results isn't so complicated after all -- even for "illiterate" grandmothers (who probably had a better education than today's kids). If it is, I wonder how Verizon copes when "grandmothers" call? [/shockhorror]
Mainstream users don't open up their computers. They take them to their friends or to a shop to have them done.
If people start taking their Linux PCs to shops to have them fixed, the "experts" will learn how to deal with linux.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
* Open xorg.conf in text editor
* Go to google to find out what to do.
* Go to some forum to find out what to look for at google.
* Wait half a day.
* find a basic texteditor. Someone points you to vim.
* Change "nv" to "nvidia"
* find out how to handle vim.
* Save and reboot
Sooo hard?
Yes, so bloody hard. Much harder than you or I can imagine.
Also Ubuntu automatically updates your graphics drivers so you never have to keep tabs on if your using the latest drivers.
Oh wow, let's all hail Ubuntu for requiring this only once.
Oh well, there goes what little carma's left.
Agreed,
:-(
What bugs me most, is that I can't change settings and apply them without having to restart my whole session! And configuring a second monitor on my laptop involve so much tinkering that I gave up... Windows got those right a long time ago
Xorg was a huge step in the right direction, but there are lots of usability issues that remain to be fixed.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Read my lips: mainstream users don't care about easy configurability. As long as basic tasks like adding/removing USB devices works out of the box, that's all they care for.
For anything else mainstream users then and now let their "power user friends" do the administration for them.
Why the hell are you using vim when you can use a notepad alternative editor like gedit?
Nice attempt at trying to make it sound harder then it is but you fail miserably.
Unlike windows that makes you go and download/install drivers from the website again and again and again and again...
Yeah because a one click upgrade isn't worth mentioning..
So do I! What a coincidence!
To think of it, everyone does! WOW!
My father is 76, he was programming back in 1965 on the BMEWS systems
Just because some of you have ignoramusses for parents and grandparents does not mean all parents and grandparents are clueless when it comes to IT...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
"You cannot honestly think the level of Windows support necessary for the average computer user is ANYWHERE near comparable to the level of support that would be necessary for Linux, can you?"
.conf file is the last time anyone in that person's sphere of influence would ever buy from that company. Linux is simply not ready to be a widespread desktop OS."
.conf file because the people I've set the machine up for aren't doing things that require you to edit .conf files. They do things things like pick OpenOfiice writer from the start menu when they want to write a document, when they plug their digital camera in up pops digikam so they don't have to find the camera program. Plugging in a memory stick automatically pops up a file manager window and on the whole things just work. Firefox for the web and kmail/evolution/thunderbird for email and most grandmas sorted.
.conf files you could stick a button on the desktop that pops up a box asking what file do you want to edit so that a technician can then say open file x....0, "hold down ctrl and f, find this line in and hit enter, now where it says parameter=1, change that to a 0 and then click file and save. Is that really any different to saying click start, run, type regedit, hit enter, click on hkey_local_machine an hit ctrl and f, put parameter in the search box and hit enter, when you find parameter in such and such a section, right click on it and change dword value, and then change the 1 to a nought. Actually, having read that back, the Linux side sounds a bloody sight simpler, and yes, I have had mainly virus checker companies running me through the registry when someone's phoned me up because an update screwed their AV software.
.conf files directly. No doubt if Dell or HP standardised on a particular distro, e.g. Ubuntu, a community wiould spring up providing additional software tailored to Dell's Ubuntu install with a convinient link to a repository so that Grandma can use synaptic to install stuff.
Yes, I support both.
"The first time a technician has to explain to grandma how to manually edit a
Well, I've built Linux boxes for people and installed and configured it on laptops. By the time I've finished setting it it up on a machine, it's in the same state that a pre-installed setup would be if you bought it from Dell or whoever and you know what; I've never had to tell grandma how to edit a
Even if you did want the option of giving newbs the tool to edit
And their lies the nub. Supporting Linux will only be a pain in cases where people make a special effort to screw it up, something that doesn't tend to happen unless people log in as root. Grandma will probably not have problems because gramdma's going to follow the instructions in the Kmail setup wizard rather than set it up by open up $HOME/.kde/share/apps and editing kmail's
If anything has held desktop Linux back it's the lack of commercial apps, Autocad, Adobe stuff etc. Once a demand for these is detected the availabilty of one should feed the other.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
You'd imagine that Dell would take care of that problem when selling pre-installed Linux boxes. It's not like it's a difficult problem to solve.
Dell or any other manufacturer loses nothing by sending people to a website with supported printers, mice or any other devices.
The lack of competition in the OS arena has meant we have been conditioned to think that all hardware work with all OSes (this hasn't never really been true, as people with older hardware can painfuly testify when they try to connect it to newer version fo Windows or people with new hardware fail to find drivers for older versions of Windows).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
First of all, what is this assumption that grandma cannot use a command line?
Just because no one in their right minds would use the Windows command line for anything doesn't give Windows users any right to say that the shells on Linux systems are just as brain damaged.
If I can tell granny to "click the funny thing with the blue E on it, then click in the address field, then type www.google.com", I can bloody well tell her to type 'apt-get install nvidia' in a command window. The command line in Linux is no longer a scary full screen experience reminiscent of War Games and other hacker movies. It is a managable little window, indistinguishable from Notepad to any novice user.
But that's beside the point.
Both nvidia and ATI distribute GUI installers with their drivers. There's even 3rd party projects like ENVY for Ubuntu that'll detect your hardware and let you download, configure and install the appropriate packages. All within the comfort of a GUI.
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity. -Isaac Asimov
These are examples of things that you should never have to do unless you're a system administrator; how is this relevant?
HP sells laptops with freeDOS. Presumably everyone who purchases one of these ends up installing something else, as the intersection of the set of freeDOS users and the set of new laptop users is basically empty. All I want is a laptop without the Windows tax. With freeDOS, they can run minimal hardware diagnostics (from a bootable floppy, even) to determine if the hardware needs servicing, and leave me to mess with the software on my own.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
Bzzt, wrong answer!
You have a very short fuse don't you?
Bzzt, wrong answer!
Why don't you talk about it with your therapist?
Bzzt, wrong answer!
So how many times did you actually beat someone to a bloody pulp?
Bzzt, wrong answer!
Well I'm so sorry I stepped on your uebersensitive EGO-dick.
Bzzt, wrong answer!
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
It costs a whole lot less to support one operating system compared to two. It doesn't really matter what the two OS's are, all that matters is that they will have to have 2 support teams instead of one, and thus 2 internal training systems, 2 different call groups, etc.
It's not exactly in your face as far as visibility, but you can avoid editing xorg.conf at all in Ubuntu by going into Synaptic Package Manager and choosing to configure Xserver-Xorg. It will walk you through a wizard and let you choose several paths based on how advanced you want to get. You can get down to authoring mode lines in it if you want to get that incredibly technical. But you can also easily specify which resolutions and color depths your monitor is capable of if it doesn't detect them automatically.
If you're stuck at a command line and can't run Synaptic, then you can also accomplish the same task with an ncurses (text-mode gui) based interface to the same wizard with:
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Well, that is done "right", or at least that's what everyone else does. See, tech support has at least two levels, and the reasons will be obvious:
1. Level 2 support. These are the guys who know their shit, are typically engineers, they know the product thoroughly, and are paid accordingly. They're expensive. From the caller's point of view, sure, you'd want to only deal with these. From the employer's point of view, as I was saying, these guys are expensive. You want to have a few of them, dealing with the truly technical issues, not an army of them dealing with the bulk of the "my coffee cup holder broke" and "where is the 'ANY' key" calls. So you also hire,
2. Level 1 support. These are the cheapest unskilled monkeys who can read a script and use a telephone. Their job is to deflect most calls and prevent them from reaching the expensive guys. If someone calls with a "I put the modem in the dish washer and now I don't have Internet" case, you want these cheap guys to handle it.
Sometimes there's a level 3 support too. These are usually the engineers/programmers who made or maintain the product, or close enogh. You _really_ don't want these guys on the phone all day.
Now whether that is "right", is another issue. From the caller's point of view, it's an irritation, because often you have to deal with guys that are even less clued than you are, and forced to go through an irrelevant script just because the helpdesk guy is _supposed_ to be too stupid to actually figure out any problem without a script. Worse yet, they often have to meet stupid criteria to keep their job, so they may have to be even more irritating than necessary. But, basically, that's how everyone is doing it nowadays.
In that aspect, whether level 1 in Bangalore or New York is rather irrelevant. As I was saying, these are _not_ supposed to be the experts, they're just supposed to be able to use a phone and read a script. If they were in New York they might not have the indian accent, but otherwise they'd still be the cheapest unskilled people money can buy.
(And yes, I know there's a whole class of "I'm teh computer genius because I work level 1 helpdesk, you're teh idiot luser" class of posters around. It saddens me to shatter their dreams, but if anyone actually is anywhere near knowledgeable about computers, then they're in the wrong job there. It's not a job for experts, it's a job for cheap disposable monkeys. I sincerely hope they find a job more suited for their qualifications, if they actually are qualified. Most aren't, though.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If you know *exactly* which file to edit and *exactly* which directive to fix, then yes, it is very easy. However your average user will not have had months/years of experience maintaining a linux box, and will have no clue what to do when they see a command prompt. Nor will they know what to search for in Google when they get some weird error message or failure warning. Your average user will not know that they may already most of the necessary documentation in README files on their computer.
You have to look at it this way... The average user does not like to read through pages and pages and pages of online forums and FAQs and Wikis. (They probably wouldn't even know which forums to use.) Hell, I don't like doing it, and I am what would be considered a "power user". (I've been using Slackware as my full-time desktop for nearly 5 years, and part-time for several years before that.) At least I have a clue what to look for when fixing and upgrading my linux box. But for new stuff, it can get very annoying. I upgraded to dual LCD displays last year (not too long after I upgraded to a new video card), and had to spend a few days searching for terms like "maximum pixel clock", "TwinView", "nvidia-auto-select", etc. (before setting up dual monitors, I hadn't even heard of those last two xorg directives, much less knew how to use them) before I could get my LCD's to work properly with the correct resolutions and refresh rates over the DVI connections. I don't think that the average user would be able to do something as simple as add a second monitor without giving up immediately.
Even with the tools that come with various distros, it is still an order of magnitude easier to do in Windows, and usually won't require you to reboot and hope that you didn't break your xorg.conf with some obscure typo or misdetected refresh rate (I had that a lot too).
--guru
By your standards, Windows and Mac OS X are not mainstream friendly, either. There's things that can only be done in Windows on the command line, and things on the Mac that can only be done on the command line, too. There are plenty of things on Windows you have to do via regedit as well - which is tantamount to editing a text file.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Too hard, still(bear in mind that you need to open xorg.conf in a sudo'd text editor, which is more complex). And there's absolutely no reason that the process can't be automated. I'm sure I managed to set up my ATI card using a script (which I could double-click; I was seeing how easy it was to get everything set up without the command line) though. Very close now. And apparently the upcoming versions of Xorg will be able to do away with xorg.conf pretty much entirely. That's the ideal.
Sometimes it's just perceptions though. A lot of distros _do_ have GUI tools to configure everything, including graphics cards. E.g., SuSE, which is what I'm using, had YAST for ages. I know it had it in '99, when I discovered SuSE.
IMHO the biggest problem in the way of Linux getting mainstream support are... the Linux zealots. Most distros actually are fairly mainstream-friendly, it's the zealots who aren't, and in some cases would rather cut an arm off than be seen using anything but the command line and vi. The command line is macho, while even knowing that a GUI config tool exists is bad for your street cred. If you ask one to show you how to configure even trivial things like your internet connection (again, GUI tools for that existed since the '90s), the local nerd will reach for vi, quickly type something that might as well be runes, close it before you can even see which file and what setting that was, then tell you it's easy. That is, if you're lucky. If you aren't, you're also getting a rant about how GUI's and "point-and-drool" interfaces are for lusers.
Briefly, it's a matter of perceptions, and sad to say a lot of Linux advocates just give the wrong impression there. They make it look more command-line-based than it really is nowadays.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Frankly stop it. It is a non fucking issue.
If you think people are so idiotic as to been unable to open a graphic text editor to edit a file, I think you have to evaluate what are the problems of the people you relate with.
Yes, a fucking graphic text editor. Some of you are fixated in a disturbing way to the concept of a command line.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Users shouldn't ever have to edit the registry; I've never had to other than to fix problems I've caused myself. And as for installing drivers, most of the time the drivers are pre-installed; and when one obtains new hardware, the drivers come on a disk with the hardware with a graphical installer. It's not perfect, but it's not especially bad.
Worth noting that I recently decided to see how much I could get done in Ubuntu without the command line, and the answer was "pretty much everything"; with the help of a script from the forums (obviously not perfect) which I could easily click to install my graphics drivers it was all basically flawless, including installing utorrent and Steam through Wine.
I'm sorry, but how many home users actually need to edit their hosts file, or their routing table? Or, for that matter, anything within the registry? I've never had to do any of these things for a desktop Windows install, despite the fact that I know how to. These are system administrator tasks, and at that point using the command-line is fine because the user can be expected have some understanding of these concepts already. These tasks and those that Linux distributions are (often wrongly) accused of forcing the user to use the command-line for are profoundly different; it's a ludicrous analogy.
What would be more useful would be to point out that in some distributions (obviously those which are geared towards user-friendliness, which seems the only fair comparison for "desktop" use), the "edit a text config file" and "use the command line" commandments are being met. The eagerness of people to dig on Windows for invalid reasons instead of defending Linux distributions which are perfectly capable of standing on their own merits bewilders me.
The most common user of computers will never need to configure a .conf file, or even know it exists. There are configuration GUI's for that. Windows also has conf files, it doesn't store the configuration in limbo, or something!
I call bullshit.
1. In no possible situation a graphics card can go into a power-saving mode when you run a wrong driver. You need some ancient ISA graphics card to even make it possible for the wrong driver to TRY to access it -- otherwise PCI IDs won't match, and X will exit with failure.
2. If X server is running on any modern Linux distro, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will merely restart it -- it's started from display manager. If X server failed multiple times, display manager gives you an error in text dialog box, and stops trying. You will see a text login prompt.
3. If X server does not fail, switch to console is Ctrl-Alt-F1.
4. You can always change display driver to "vesa" and use your graphics card in compatibility mode. As opposed to Windows it won't drop you into 640x480, either.
And since only a moron or Windows shill wouldn't know that, I recommend you to shut up.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I think the official instructions would be a better comparison. They can be found here.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I call bullshit, end users don't RTFM regardless of the OS and they are just as incapable of operating a windows based system, as they are a Linux one. I got news for you, when they can't figure something out, who do they call? Their fucking ISP. Yes folks, when you can't figure out how to operate your scanner, call your ISP, it happens all the time.
I guess that is what I get for providing English speaking service and almost no hold time. But seriously, what difference would it really make? They'd get about the same number of calls from morons, and I would get the rest.
Wait, why am I arguing this? I could care less if Dell offers Linux on its PCs. For starters, I could install it if I want, and more importantly, I don't give a flying fuck what anyone else runs, just don't make _me_ run windows. I may not care, but it is still a load of crap, Dell's tech support is crappy on purpose, it encourages them to call me, because I am easier to talk to.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
The registry is still a massive, system-wide collection of configuration data which under normal circumstances would be OK; However, if damaged or misconfigured, the corrupted registry causes the entire system to become inoperable. A much better scheme would be to have configs for each installed program link to the registry, so rather than tossing all your eggs in the same basket, you have your eggs all over the place and the Registry is simply a central hub. The way it is now, again, if it dies, so does your system. That's an abominable in my books.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
but how many home users actually need to edit their hosts file, or their routing table? Or, for that matter, anything within the registry?
Well, trouble shooting your networking problems often includes looking at your routing table. For a home user, this may be under instruction from their ISP, but they will still have to do it from time to time. Pinging somewhere is also a common diagnostic tool.
Many recommended fixes to Windows problems include editing the registry. Have a look through the MS Knowledge base some time.
I firmly believe that Linux is quite user friendly, for virtually everything I have the option of editing the config file by hand or some form of configuration tool. The best thing is it is my choice which one I use, and I can switch between methods at will.
However I did object to the previous post claiming that to be considered user friendly Linux could not use the command line or edit config files, whilst Windows could , as well as require users to edit the registry from time to time.
Ever stop to think
I see you were visited by the moron modder. Flamebait? I wish I had mod points to fix this one...
Self awareness - try it!
What's the command line, typing.
I have to tinker in typing in Windows sometimes with for example adding an environment variable. So your absolute "NEVER EVER" is just too rigid. I might accept it if you said the proverbial grandma never has too, by that meaning that a person who buys a contained unit and uses it for purely mainstream purposes should never have to.
"The most obvious [problem] is deciding which version of Linux to offer. There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one
It doesn't matter what everyone wants, you install the most consistent and popular version. (or two if decided upon) While there are lots of great distros (Linux and non-Linux) out there, you would be a fool offer DSL, Gentoo, or even FreeBSD. All three are great and I've use (or have used) them now, but the following for these arn't big enough to make a profit or even break even trying to produce. While Jim enjoys FreeBSD and would buy a Dell Desktop with BDS, Jack who is a FreeBDS fiend wouldn't because he prefers to build his own.
On the other hand, if you released a Desktop PC with Fedora (or RHEL WS) or even SUSE (spit) you would be more likely to sell them even to users who prefer other distros because if Fedora runs on it, chances are they will be able to get their favorite distro to run on it.
I think the biggest issue isn't a Desktop with Linux pre-installed as it is knowing Linux will support all the hardware features.
I'm not certain that playing with a routing table is something that's done often in fixing desktop user's networking problems (I've certainly never had to do it on a desktop system, running any OS), and in any case by the time someone gets to the point of "diagnostics" they probably have help (as you imply) from someone experienced to at least talk them through it anyway.
But it's this part which I was replying to:
That is not what the post you replied to claimed (although I'm sure it could be inferred), but when they don't even mention Windows I think it's going overboard to start laying into it. Windows is "mainstream-friendly" through a combination of having a friendly interface earlier (which, given the relative commercial pressures on the operating systems, is far from surprising) and because MS is just ubiquitous anyway.
I think the better response to the post would have been to point out that one genuinely does not require the command line or manual editing of config files, regardless of whether you like editing config files or not. As you point out, for basically anything that can be done in Windows there is a configuration tool available in many Linux distributions.
I just don't get why people immediately jump to the "but editing config files is easy!" response (there was a few!), or the "but Microsoft/Apple are just as bad!" response (I mean, the implication that free software is aspiring to Microsoft/Apple's standards can be taken as pretty insulting; it should be aiming far beyond), when the fact is that the poster was just unaware of how much progress has been made in Linux distributions recently.
The article asks the question "Where do you draw the line?" How about you draw the line where every other OEM draws the line? I worked for an HP tech support centre and we drew the line at "We only support whatever software and hardware came with the PC at the time of purchase." So if Dell were to preload OpenOffice, Firefox and VLC as some of the main components, then those are pieces of software Dell could support, along with the main core features/software that come with either KDE or Gnome (or Enlightenment if they felt so inclined). To provide support further than that would be to provide far more support than they, HP, Gateway, etc. offer for Windows.
I suspect the power-saving mode to be the result of an out of range for your monitor setting. The result being after the brief message from the monitor it enters standby because there is no signal.
So to a relative new comer power saving is apparent. I imagine that happens on Windows too though if you try to go to a setting that your monitor can't cope with. The only difference being I would find it marginally harder (distro dependent) to get past the 15 seconds or so test settings patch without it reverting.
No flames from me, because you've nailed it.
Those of us involved in the tech world/business sometimes lose sight of the fact that non-tech users are not the least bit interested in what's under the hood. Just like their automobile, they want to sit down, hit the switch and go. Out of 199 million vehicles on the road, how many drivers do work on their own car? I'd guess it to be a tiny fraction.
I break down users (not techies) into a couple of categories: knowledgeable users who fully understand the apps they use, and how to navigate around the file structure, be it Mac or Windows. In the other camp, there are those who struggle when anything is the least bit out of line - an app that opens is asking to do an update, or Windows is asking to update or some such thing. At that point, their fragile confidence falls apart and their on the phone to the help desk.
Some Linux distros expect users to be more than just knowledgeable; they must be ready to open the hood and get their hands a little dirty. It's good that GUIs exist to minimize this, but, for all the disdain for anything that comes out of Redmond, MS has tried to make the computer more of an appliance than a tool for tinkerers. Subjectively, most would agree they haven't done that, but they (and Macs) are a lot closer to that goal than any Linux distro is yet.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
The obvious proof that it is difficult to set up a secure windows machine is the millions of Windows zombies on the net. If things were as rosy as you claim, we would not have this problem.
I'm not too sure your conclusion nesseceraily follows from your evidence. It could be easy to set up a secure Windows machine, but people might still not do it, for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they are ignorant of the dangers posed, perhaps they just can't be bothered (I think ignorance is the most likely, by the way).
All I ever did to secure my windows machines was install Zone Alarm. It has a lovely, brightly coloured, non intimidating installation dialog, lets you choose your experience level, uses a minimum of jargon and automatically configures itself to allow standard stuff through (IE, Firefox, etc). It's as simple as anything I have ever installed.
In any case, any windows PC you buy nowadays ships with SP2, and will have a firewall turned on by default. Really, most malware is installed by end users intentionally, although not knowingly, when they download and install toolbars, smilies, P2P clients and the like. It is virtually impossible for the OS to protect the end user from this sort of thing, and Linux is no different in this regard.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
"People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them." -- Dave Barry
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
That is one of the biggest roadblocks of linux adoption here in Venezuela. At least in my case, I don't see linux actually moving into the casual user's desktop until there's a 100% compatible MSN client for it. And yes, I know of GAIM and simmilar, but I mean supporting EVERYTHING MSN does (webcams, animated smileys and the like).
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
There already is a Linux company that has a Linux box without the Windows tax that has a great big box store nationwide distribution - Linspire. Say what you want about Linspire, but at least they support Open Source.
The whole Dell sucks because they won't sell Linux based PCs or no O/S PCs complaint is a farce.
The people complaining about this issue would never buy a Linux based computer, don't pay for software (whether it's free or not) and don't really care about Linux or Open Source in general. So no wonder why Dell has no interest in selling PCs with Linux or no O/S.
For those who do care, they either build their own PCs and put their flavor of Linux on them, get a new PC from their employer and dual-boot Linux (in which case its their employer paying the Windows tax), or they buy a Linux PC from one of the established Linux PC vendors, of which there are many.
The question shouldn't be why Dell should sell PCs with Linux, it should be: Why don't Linux users support Open Source by buying Linux based computers through Linux PC vendors? Linux users that are paying the Windows tax are just hurting their own cause and are supporting the enemy.
Sorry to disappoint, but Dell's responsibility is to its shareholders and, by extension, its customer base. It has no responsibility to distribute the techno-OS du-jour.
When the MS account manager wants to meet with Dell, he goes to see Dell.
When RedHat or someone else goes to see Dell and makes an offer Dell can make a profit with, Dell might make a deal, if they have the time and resources to launch a new product line.
If they think Dell is being short-sighted, there are other PC builders. I have trouble believing that RedHat, etc. haven't tried to get their products preloaded on somebody's boxes. That none of the mainstream sources include a linux PC is fairly strong evidence that even the people who understand it best are hard-pressed to cobble together an attractive value proposition.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
I've been using windows since '95. I have never, ever, had to edit the registry. Additionally, I can only think of one consumer device for which I was unable to locate drivers, which was a particularly old graphics tablet a friend of mine found in his loft a few years back.
By comparison , I've been using Linux since '99. I have edited more config files than I could hope to count. I had to edit config files on three occasions while setting up the PC I'm typing this on. In addition, I have three consumer devices on this desk that I have been unable to locate drivers for. Actually, one of them I have found drivers for, it just refuses to work, and I gave up trying to figure out why.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
I'd venture that a good 75% of people who would buy Linux loaded PCs from Dell already load RedHat or CentOS on them. It's basically the de-facto standard distribution in the "real world" for anyone who values third party software support (this is not an endorsement of RedHat over any other distro, just a recognition that for the market Dell sells rack servers to, it's probably the best mix of "free software" cred and "business suit" job security.)
So why not RedHat? It seems to make the most sense given where Dell is coming from and who their typical server customer is. Hell, Dell can even add the OS support contract as a line item when you buy the thing, or they could set up their own repositories and support them themselves.
If you don't want to mess with detailed setup, why the hell are you running Slackware? That's like buying a car with a manual transmission and then complaining that you have to switch gears...
I see your point of view and you are completely correct. There is nothing you have said that is wrong.
.. and all the other complicated things you have to do with windows just to keep it running and secure.
I have also seen the same BS over and over from these "experts" as to why Linux "isn't ready for Desktop". I laugh at them from my Ubuntu Laptop, my first Linux distro with no prior knowledge of Linux before.
I have been using it for six months now and am very happy with being able to:
- download everything from one place
- not having to defrag
- not having to virus scan
- not having to download drivers from 5 maybe 6 different websites
- not having to update all my programs from 20 maybe 30 different websites
To me that stuff is boring and I want it to just work!
Yeah, but with Windows, through all of that you never once needed to edit a scary config file. Wasn't it so much easier that way?
Well, umm, you see, Gentoo isn't meant for ordinary users. You chose that distro knowing what you were in for, and now you're paying the price.
Ubuntu didn't have any problems whatsoever, neither did my Debian 3.1 install. You just chose the wrong distribution.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Comment removed based on user account deletion
(the same is true in OSX' terminal BTW...)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
"completely standard Dell" is an oxymoron.
& you need to do that sort of tweakery for certain combinations of dell pc + dell monitor even with Windows. Hooking up a Dell printer to a Dell pc running Windows can also be more interesting than it should be.
Actually running this stuff under the "grandmas OS" is a real eye opener actually.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Hmm... It appears that both Linux and OS X have a graphical utility to do something, but your os, Windows XP, requires you to do that with a command line. If you really don't like the idea of using a command line, I guess Windows just doesn't cut it.
> Then I had to repeat the whole procedure again, because a new version of timezone-data came out,
> because of bugs in the first one. Then I had to repeat the whole procedure YET again a third
> time cause the bugfix release wasn't complete. All in 2007.
Except that the America/New_York timesone info hasn't changed since mid 2006.....
Mos of the 2007 tz changes have been DST tweaks for places that didn't decide to do DST until very late (like Bahamas, Pulasky County, Indiana, some places in Canada)
main(i){putchar(177663314>>6*(i-1)&63|!!(i<5)<<6)&&main(++i);}
Solutions to your scenario.
." and "I'm sorry, you will have to upgrade your hardware for that."
"No, ma'am. The Logitech camera is not compatible with your system. I apologize. The [XXX] model is compatible, and Dell offers it for $YY.95. How would you like that shipped?
Yes, ma'am, you can use it for video chat with your friends on Messenger. You will need the aMSN client, which is available free of charge from Dell's Click-N-Run store. Yes, ma'am, the blue icon on your desktop."
Similar to what they're going thru with Vista, considering the incompatibilities.
As for Skype, they can either get off their ass and add video, or Dell could bundle Wengo (http://www.wengophone.com/index.php/homePage) and make it obvious. They could also bundle Skype and simply tell customers it doesn't support video, yet. I'm not sure how popular video chat on Skype is. It only works Skype-to-Skype, not Skype-to-phone and only one-on-one, not in conferences.
Vista's rollout should give Dell techs a lot of practice saying "I'm sorry, that program doesn't work with
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
That you "just installed the updates" either means that your system relies on a TZ variable pointing to the repository (which won't work for chroot jails, nor when the repository is temporarily unavailable, like when booting and before mounting /usr/share), or that you only updated the database, but not the active localtime files. Since the package manager can't know which localtime rules you want to use, it can't do it for you without at the very least ask you to choose one. And it can't know where else you might have a chroot jail which needs its own settings file, so those will be left alone.
Relying on the distro to do it for you without double-checking what really took place is dangerous.
Oh, so the "no exceptions!" clause only applied to Linux, then?
Microsoft tells you to edit the registry - quite often, in fact.
If you're not reading their technet bulletins, I don't think that makes you a better Windows administrator, sorry.
I think the "no exceptions" clause probably only applied to desktop tasks! I think it's quite unreasonable to expect any OS to entirely forgo the command line (certainly, it's not advisable). You might as well have said "but you can't use the command line without using the command line"; it's not a relevant use-case.
Personally I think that (desktop) Linux distributions are generally easily usable without the command line these days (I've been experimenting with using my Ubuntu just like this, and I've not run into problems where I wouldn't have found the same problems on OS X or Windows yet), but this immediate rush of people to condemn Windows rather than to defend Linux on its merits seems kinda bitter and unhelpful.
It could be easy to set up a secure Windows machine, but people might still not do it, for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they are ignorant of the dangers posed, perhaps they just can't be bothered (I think ignorance is the most likely, by the way).
All I ever did to secure my windows machines was install Zone Alarm.
How do you know how hard it is to set up a secure Windows machine if you've never actually done it?
Having a software firewall does not make your machine secure. It helps, sure, but it's just the first step.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
If you're setting up chroots manually, that entirely depends on how you set it up. It's not distributions fault.I can look at the source package of the update packages but I can't do that with Microsoft's updates...
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
While Microsoft began releasing software patches that take account of the new, earlier shifts to Daylight Savings Time months ago, panic calls from admins everywhere suggest that businesses may be waiting until the last minute to install them. As a result, an Info-Tech Research Group bulletin this morning describes, Microsoft's technical support personnel only just this week discovered that its various patches for Windows, Exchange Server, Outlook, and other tools should be installed in a precise order, otherwise they may not actually be patching networks. According to an Info-Tech Advisor bulletin begun last Tuesday and updated since, in response to advice from Info-Tech and others, Microsoft updated its DST Knowledgebase bulletin to reflect a more proper order of installation for all the various patches the company has released. However, Info-Tech cautions, the older edition of Microsoft's instructions remain online, and is still being linked to by other documents. As a result, some of the consulting firm's business clients are reporting problems that may have been caused by separate divisions of their companies following two (or more) different sets of instructions.
You should check out the new book "Preview Button for Dummies".
:^)
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(hostname-removed):~ # date
Mon Mar 12 15:25:24 GMT 2007
Meh... s'wat I get for working for one of them thar multi-national corporational-type critters what spans multiple timezones.
(Now Java OTOH... well, that took pushing out a patch; scripted it in less than 10 minutes).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I've yet to find a Linux help web site where people say "RTFM n00b."
I've gone through the linux "process" at least seven times in the past. For a while THE source seemed to be the linux usenet news groups. I would search and search and find hundreds of other people with the same problem I was experiencing. I'd find three or four suggestions, none of which worked. And when I finally asked online I found the responses to be downright rude.
It's better today, with so much support coming from other places, but if you've never heard "RTFM n00b", or some variation thereof, I'm VERY surprised.
For a long time I really think the greatest barriers to the mass adoption of linux were the shitheads who advocated it.
Slashdot polls are normally pretty useless, especially given the bias of the community - but this is one place it could work on our favor! How about doing the following poll:
I would consider buying a Dell PC if it came installed with:
[ ] Red Hat Enterprise Linux
[ ] Latest Fedora Core
[ ] Ubuntu
[ ] (2-3 other popular choices)
[ ] I don't care, as long as it runs on a stock 2.6.x kernel and comes with
a disk of all the hardware drivers
[ ] I wouldn't buy a Dell PC if it came free in a box of fruit loops.
I don't know if Dell would listen, but this would probably be worth as much as any information they get from market-droids.
My dad has used Windows XP for several years and hasn't edited the Registry or installed hardware drivers. With Windows 98 you have may have a point: when my dad still used Windows 98, I often helped him by tweaking Registry settings. And installing drivers for simple hardware like Flash drives and a wireless NIC almost fubared the whole machine.
But none of that happens on Windows XP. All the hardware just works. I like Linux as much as the next guy--I haven't used Windows on my home PC in about five years--but it's not productive to criticize Windows for problems with a nine-year-old version that is no longer supported. The biggest problems with Windows 98 were solved in Windows XP.
Personally, I think Dell should offer Centos support on its servers - they are very widely used in the web hosting industry, and Centos seems to be the most common distro for that. Dell would capture a significant part of its customer base that way.
.exe's.
Dell does sell pre-installed RHEL on their server class boxes, as well as many of their workstations. Or, you can save some $ and they'll sell you a no-OS box. In which case, you can still download the box-specific RHEL drivers from their support website, which include nice things like BIOS flash utilities which are shell scripts not
Exactly what we want, unless you're buying their consumer desktop stuff. And I can see why they don't offer linux there - the Venn diagram of the most clueless user set they have to support, combined with the hardest OS to support (for such users) is not particularly attractive from Dell's end.
Well I would have hit the Preview button, but it was just too hard.
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
Changing a video card is really easy. The steps are:
Power off the PC
Take all the cables off
Open the case
Remove the card that the monitor used to be plugged into
Put your new card in the same slot
Close the case
Reattach the cables
Power on the PC
If in Windows, the card will be detected and the correct drivers installed, or worst case, you'll have to install the drivers off a CD. It's so long since I've bothered setting up a graphics card in Linux that I don't know how easy it is to configure the X server following a hardware change. The last time I did it you still had to worry about dotclock settings and stuff.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
I'll admit it's a longshot and might not be mature enough for business desktop use, but I'm voting PC-BSD with it's PBI system.
Well, I never had any sort of problem with any kind of malware (virus, worm, whatever) in the whole time I was using Windows. Perhaps you could explain what else I needed to do ?
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
You cannot honestly think the level of Windows support necessary for the average computer user is ANYWHERE near comparable to the level of support that would be necessary for Linux, can you? The first time a technician has to explain to grandma how to manually edit a
You haven't tried Ubuntu, have you. Its actually easier to use than Windows. I have not found any common admin task that is not accessible via a very friendly pointy-clicky interace, no config file editing necessary. I find the interface actually easier and more user friendly than Windows, and you can't get any more easy than their Add/Remove feature for adding third party software. Lack of popular commercial apps is still a viable complaint for some users, but ease of use arguments just don't hold water anymore.
And yes, I've set up Ubuntu systems for several very happy computer noobs that wanted desperatly to get off the Widows malware/reinstall/upgrade treadmill. No complaints or support problems so far.
The Bolachek Journals
offer a buyer the option to *NOT* purchase Windows.
Of course, most people who are smart enough to realize they don't want Windows (or even recognize the difference between hardware and software, really) probably also recognize that they can build a much better machine at a better or comparable price buying parts locally or from Newegg and also avoid the nonstandard cases, mounting brackets and other crap that Dell puts in their machines.
So really, getting a maker of cheap consumer-grade proprietary hardware to offer anything other than a cheap consumer-grade proprietary OS with it is probably moot.
As someone who uses a PC at work for heavy development (everything from Windows device drivers to large .NET apps and ASP.NET websites) I have never *once* needed to edit the registry, or known anyone else in the office need to...
Then you're lucky enough to never have needed to apply any of the VS/.NET hot fixes. Last week I had the C# compiler die and request that VS2005 ask me to send an error report to MS. I let it send the error report and got back a link to a hot fix which included editing the registry.
Without the 2nd Amendment, the others are just suggestions.
Somewhere along the line everybody was convinced (I blame AOL) that you just couldn't understand how to use a computer unless everything you did was clicking on a picture. Somewhere along the way, society convinced itself that nobody could fucking read.
/etc/resolv.conf
;-)
Somewhere along that same line, Microsoft clued into this trend and accelerated the trend that spawned generations of clueless computer users. Seems now it's a self-fulfilling and self-replicating prophecy. The irony, of course, is that behind the clicky pictures, things have become so convoluted that few can understand or manage the mess, Microsoft included.
Now, I'm not advocating a return to the days when computers were a pain in the ass to configure or use. All I'm saying is that (much like people used their car's heat and A/C before it was just "blue seated dudered dude") people tend to be as stupid as society allows them to be, or tells them they are. If Dell support tells your grandma "editing this text file is easy, here you can even cut-and-paste this", then she'll believe it's easy.
I *would* advocate that very approach, at least to the extent that computer users re-learn what computers are and how they work. Given that most all of us are going to spend the rest of our lives using computers, it seems perfectly appropriate to learn a damn thing or two.
As for the original "It's not ready for the desktop if I ever have to manually edit a config file", it's worth pointing out two things.
First, the "manually editing" construct is disingenuous in that it suggests some sort of onerous labour that most folks don't already do on a daily basis in a wordprocessor. I can't recall anyone complaining about "manually editing" a Word file.
And second, *nix systems are built around the concept of a terminal and files. All the clicking on widgets and pictures doesn't change any of that. And given that typically the results of all that clicking gets written to a file anyway, it should occur to those lamenting the necessity of "manually editing" things that they might skip opening up yet another window to click yet another series of widgets and do it directly. One can come up with hundreds of examples, but compare the following:
$ echo "nameserver 192.168.1.1" >>
Start -> Control Panel -> Network and Dialup Connections -> Local Network -> Properties -> Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) -> Properties -> etc -> 192.168.1.1 -> etc
The second option is hard to follow without a series of screenshots, isn't it?
I found myself having to recompile my kernel in Ubuntu in order to get a wireless card driver to work. This just isn't acceptable for Joe average who thinks a computer is essentially a magic box which even has a personality and can even take a dislike to certain users.
It could potentially work at first with an apple-style approach complete with limited hardware availablility to ensure that driver issues weren't a problem. But what about installing applications or new/upgraded hardware? Will we be asking users to log in as root (after enabling it and setting up a password in ubuntu) or SUDO commands in the terminal? Not cool. Already there's a massive problem with users thinking they're unable to do even the most basic maintenance and troublshooting for themselves and calling their neighbour's 15YO son over to fix their busted computer.
Asking them to bring up a terminal is totally out of the question, and is undeniably part of doing evn some of the more basic functions in a linux environment. "Double-click -> next -> I agree -> next -> Finish" is as complicated as it should get. It sucks, but it's true: people don't want to train as mechanics to be able to drive a car.
http://www.frenchgeek.com/
If they cannot choose which Linux to distribute but they somehow insist on installing an OS (which they shouldn't do in the first place), then why don't they pick a distro, customise and brand it and sell it as their own.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Salesman: Sir, are you under the impression that a computer comes with a cup holder?
Customer: Heck yeah! Mine even came out and went back in when I pressed a button!
Salesman: Sir, can I interest you in a Windows computer?
Bark less. Wag more.
You'd need someone who is more expert at Windows than I am, but antivirus software, disabling Windows Scripting, and doing something about ActiveX, as well as keeping up to date on the patches are all things I hear others talking about. Oh, and spyware/adware cleanup tools, too.
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No, I'm not affiliated with them in any way -- I'd never heard of them until about 20 minutes ago in a comment above. Their website's pretty impressive -- as is their product line. They look like the real deal.
In spite of the dupes, the trolls, the zealotry -- if nothing else, it's this kind of stuff that keeps bringing me back to slashdot.
Why do you assume I use Windows?
Yeah, you're right, that is a rather inflammatory choice of response on my part.... sorry 'bout that.
:-)
But I still stand by the meat of my post
Yes, as a matter of fact. Yes!
I might be persuaded that editing config files for really really advanced or unusual things might be OK.
But to get a freaking video card to work? From one of the top makers of video cards?
No, sorry, that's just unacceptable.
As a user, I've never found the need to check my routing table or hosts file.
(As a developer, sure. But that's not what we're talking about here.)
any recommended fixes to Windows problems include editing the registry.
That's true.
But I'm not aware of any issues quite so commonplace -- or as dire -- as "my videocard refuses to work", that require editing the registry.
As a mainstream user? Pretty much, no, not that I can recall.
(For my development work? Sure, yeah, all the time. But then I get paid to do this. My mom wants it to just work. The odds that she could use vim to edit xorg.conf when the it's broken are, well, pretty slim.)
Sure, there are occasional odd bits on the "mainstream" systems too, but in my experience they are extraordinarily few and far between.
Look, all I'm saying is that if you want Linux to remain a developer-oriented OS, then the status quo is fine. But to truly penetrate the mainstream, you either have to understand the non-developer mindset ("typing commands is confusing"), or convert all users to the developer mindset ("boiling the ocean").
You know, I actually agree with you.
At the same time... I recently sold my last manual transmission car for an automatic. Manuals used to have a nice advantage in terms of reliability and efficiency, but newer 5-speed autos pretty much don't give up anything significant there, and they are way easier to deal with in the hell of traffic that is the Bay Area. (Sure, they cost a bit more, but I'm willing to spend the bucks.)
Does this mean I'm a loser for taking advantage of improvements in technology? Or does it mean that the baseline standards have shifted?
Back in the Windows 3.1 days, editing WIN.INI (or xorg.conf, etc) was standard operating procedure... but that was then; this is now. Expectations have shifted.
First, the "manually editing" construct is disingenuous in that it suggests some sort of onerous labour that most folks don't already do on a daily basis in a wordprocessor. I can't recall anyone complaining about "manually editing" a Word file.
;-)
Except that making a typo when editing the Word file won't prevent you from re-opening the Word file and fixing it. Making a typo when editing (say) xorg.conf can clobber you into text-only mode. Hope you know vim, and remembered to sudo first.
And second, *nix systems are built around the concept of a terminal and files.
I'm glad you understand that, but present-day desktop systems have done their best to eradicate that metaphor in favor of the Windows-ish view of the world, in which "terminal" has been banished in favor of "graphical presentation". Linux (et al) may really be that way under the surface, but then, so is OS X, and it's managed to banish the terminal-and-files metaphor to a ghetto that only developers need to enter. I submit to you that this is a good thing.
The second option is hard to follow without a series of screenshots, isn't it?
Um, no, not really.
Dude! I never said Vista looks good.
Vista is a bag of poo.
If you offered me the option to run Vista, or drive a nail through my hand, I'd probably ask, "what size nail are talking about?"
Thanks for an excellent and thoughtful response; that really gets to the heart of what I was trying to say. Wish I was able to mod you up.
I definitely see what you're saying there, buddy.
:P
As for your new tranny, I agree that the new automatics have gotten a lot better, and I also think that the geography you're driving in (San Francisco? Crap, I'd get an automatic too) has gotten a lot better. I don't necessarily think the baseline has shifted, though. We just have better options.
and I agree with you that (speaking in terms of OS) expectations have shifted; that's not a bad thing. My issue is folks deciding that their expectations are necessity, without looking at things like overall quality or cost. It's the idea that users "can't" do things, are are "too stupid" that gets me. Sure, they act stupid, but only because they've decided that it's OK to be stupid.
To use the car analogy to death (hehe) I feel like users have decided (or been convinced) that "climate control" (where you pick a temperature and the car keeps it there) is the only thing they can have, and they need a Lexus because a Toyota only has "hot" and "cold" and high-medium-low fan settings on the heater and the A/C.
Now, it's worth noting that my Saab has climate control, and it truly is a better way. But I got that car used, on the cheap, so I absolve myself of any loserish-ness.
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
Good luck setting up stuff like multiple monitors (or a video projector) that way.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
why do you want a Dell?
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
but antivirus software
12 years using windows. Never used any form of AV software. Number of viruses infections in that time? Zero.
doing something about ActiveX,
The dangerous bits of ActiveX are either set to display a prompt or are turned off by default since SP2 ( or possibly earlier, I'm not too sure on that one. I only switched to XP after SP2).
keeping up to date on the patches
If I'm doing a new XP install, I apply one patch, SP2. Then I turn off automatic updates, and, as I keep saying, I've never had a problem. Although if you want the updates, Windows is set to automatically check for updates and alert you when new ones are available. Very similar to Ubuntu, if you've used that.
spyware/adware cleanup tools
Never used them. As I've said elsewhere in this discussion, most of that stuff is installed by the end user, on purpose. No OS can protect the end user from themselves. Well, unless you think Treacherous Computing is a good idea. I don't.
I do get the impression that you don't have a ton of recent experience with XP. Good for you. I use Linux around 80 percent of the time myself. But really, Windows is not as bad as a lot of Slashbots want you to believe. 95 percent of real world security problems I see with XP could be solved by doing two things: run a firewall, don't install crap.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
While I know I'm awfully late making a reply to this...
I think people have decided they are much to unintelligent when it comes to computers to do either form of editing. Heck boxes with pictures and directions are to hard for them....
I say that from experience... Users on the network I manage can't 'find the internet' if their isn't a big giant 'E' on the desktop for them. They don't understand email, they just 'click on that outlook thingie'. I could go on and on... But frankly they have decided they aren't smart enough to learn anything about a system or even follow (very) simple rules.
Clicking 'start' -> 'all programs' -> 'internet explorer' was to hard, so it had to go to the desktop... How to unpause a printer was to hard, so even though they regularly manage to pause the printer they can't undo it... Some of them were moved to linux (to replace old win 98 installs). Firefox through them for a loop. Most can't figure out how to print (made harder by multiple printers in some rooms admittedly). Average tasks now have them calling me... Every time I show them how to do it they decide they can't remember it... And the cycle continues... A couple wanted to be able to install new software so I showed them Synaptic and they refuse to believe me that they can do it themselves...
They are all really smart people when it comes to things other than computers (though I still think one comes in whacked on drugs of some sort with all the talk about 'spiritual-wholeness' and such).
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
"most malware is installed by end users intentionally, although not knowingly, when they download and install toolbars, smilies, P2P clients and the like. It is virtually impossible for the OS to protect the end user from this sort of thing, and Linux is no different in this regard."
Oh, really? I guess that explains all the popups and viruses I have on my Linux machine that have automatic root access because Linux default installs set up only one user as root...
Gee, I never knew that SP2 and Windows firewall made Windows PCs impregnable!
And all my spyware-cleaning clients run P2P software and download viruses deliberately. (I will admit to having had two clients who used Limewire to download a couple MP3's and ended up with totally hosed machines...)
Moron...
It is NOT easy to set up a secure Windows machine. It requires at least FOUR antispyware tools, at least one antivirus (maybe two for a second opinion since the first one gives false positives), one firewall (preferably hardware), one antitrojan tool, one browser hijack tool, one rootkit revealer, and a different browser than IE, and several hardening steps requiring turning off services and editing the Registry.
And that doesn't include the "vulnerability of the week^M^M^M^Mday" patches, either.
Not to mention that Windows has a firewall only after ten goddamn years of NOT having one.
Another goddamn Microsoft shill without a clue...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"most of that stuff is installed by the end user, on purpose."
Bullshit.
"12 years using windows. Never used any form of AV software. Number of viruses infections in that time? Zero."
Bullshit.
"I only switched to XP after SP2."
So you used Windows 98 and 2000 for 12 years?
Bullshit.
"I use Linux around 80 percent of the time myself"
Bullshit.
Sorry, just gave yourself away. EVERY Microsoft shill uses some version of that line: "I really like Linux, BUT..."
You're a Microsoft shill. You're a liar.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
And grandma has multiple monitors? I am a 3d engineer and I only use 1! Stop looking for things to complain about...
Great Intellect...
(K)Ubuntu is lacking in a lot of things.
The morons who put that distro out dumbed it down in an attempt to emulate Windows.
They failed.
I'm running Kubuntu - I know.
I'm seriously thinking about going back to Mandriva which has more complete configuration tools and better tested software.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Oh come on. Easily attaching a video projector to a laptop is an absolute necessity. It is a very common thing in many workplaces and yes, my dad did it for his 70th birthday party to show off his best vacation photos, I think that qualifies for the grandma test. Stop glossing over serious issues that still persist in Linux.
For the record, the first Linux kernel I used was 1.3.78 (1996), I think if I was looking for things to complain about I would not have switched all my private PCs to Linux only in 1999 or so.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Interesting.
Never knew that.
I haven't had to bother changing the Xorg config from the GUI - OR from the command line - since my install of Kubuntu - I wonder if I should say that, since it makes me sound like the usual naive Windows user - so I just took a look at the Kubuntu Monitor settings in System Settings.
Why, look! They have a slider to change to the resolution! JUST LIKE WINDOWS!
They have a way to select the monitor, select the driver, select the colors, etc. - JUST LIKE WINDOWS!
Gee, looks like Windows, don't it?
Only thing wrong with it is that you don't see this level of configuration when you right-click on the desktop and choose "Configure Desktop"...
If the (K)Ubuntu idiots had linked the System Settings dialog to the "Configure Desktop", it would be nearly identical to Windows...
Of course, if you're INSTALLING Kubuntu and your card isn't detected at all, then you're hosed until you get it configured right - which of course the installer lets you do if you have the card and monitor specs. But again, as everyone has pointed out, if you're dealing with a PRE-INSTALLED Linux, that isn't an issue.
Guess that argument about needing to tweak the Xorg config file from the command line just got blown out...
Big surprise.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"Easily attaching a video projector to a laptop is an absolute necessity. It is a very common thing in many workplaces"
Bullshit.
Try again, Microsoft shill.
Gave yourself away with that Linux bullshit line again.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"one of the absolute must-haves is that the user must NEVER EVER EVER, any any circumstances, have to either (1) edit a text config file by hand, or (2) use the command line."
Oh, bullshit.
Let your Windows hose itself (on a daily basis). How do you fix it?
Ever used the Recovery Console, moron?
Guess what? COMMAND LINE!
Ever need to ping your localhost because WINDOWS HOSED THE FUCKING NETWORK?
Guess what? COMMAND LINE!
Ever use Windows servers?
Guess what? COMMAND LINE! (If you want to be productive, anyway...)
Get a fucking clue about Windows support.
"I speak the truth."
You speak Microsoft shill bullshit, like the rest of the shills.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Zero that you know of!
I have a brother-in-law who made the same claim. One day just for fun he installed a virus scanner and it found a crapload of infections. His machine was probably part of multiple botnets.
I do get the impression that you don't have a ton of recent experience with XPMy XP experience is limited to cleaning up other peoples crapware-infested machines (I primarily used Windows from 1991 to 2001, but have used Linux as my main platform for work and home since then). I agree that most of it certainly comes from running random crap you find around the net, but I doubt that all of it was from that. Given the huge number of IE and Outlook exploits that are floating around, though, odds are good that there were some remote infections there as well.
95 percent of real world security problems I see with XP could be solved by doing two things: run a firewall, don't install crap.In addition to the fact that you're leaving yourself open to the other 5% of problems, note that you're advocating securing the user, rather than the system. That's fine, when you're dealing with users that you can train effectively, but it's not a practical approach in general.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Ever used the Recovery Console, moron?
No.
Ever need to ping your localhost because WINDOWS HOSED THE FUCKING NETWORK?
No.
Ever use Windows servers?
Yes, but I didn't need to use a CLI to use them.
You speak Microsoft shill bullshit, like the rest of the shills.
Who said I was talking about Windows, anyway? I'm typing this on a Mac.
Clearly we need a preview system that doesn't require users to deal with the horrendous complexity of clicking buttons *and* moving a mouse. Does anyone really believe that the average grandmother has that kind of hand-eye coordination?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
To argue that attaching video projectors to laptops is uncommon is so stupid, it is unbelievable. You should get out of your garbage dump some time. And where do you get the "MS shill"? Because I said in this thread that Ubuntu is missing a config option? And this is the same thread in which you say you consider going back to Mandriva because of missing config options! Has your embedded robot eaten your brain?
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Why doesn't Red Hat sell computers, taking a similar business model to Microsoft?
Oh yeah: before accusing people of being MS shills, you should look at the UID and the posting history, n00b.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Oh, really? I guess that explains all the popups and viruses I have on my Linux machine that have automatic root access because Linux default installs set up only one user as root...
.deb from my website, install it by double clicking on it and typing in your root password, what does Linux do to protect you from my malware?
Where, exactly, did I say that Windows was as secure as Linux, and that linux has as big a virus problem as windows? What I said was that most malware is installed purposefully by end users. It is virtually impossible to protect end users from damaging their own systems, and Linux is no better at this than Windows (I'll grant that by default you need to enter your root password to do so on Linux, but that is true of windows now vista is out).
Now, try answering a question for me. I'd answer it myself, but I'm a moron apparently. If write a program called "Nude Celeb Viewer", and you download the
The reason this is relevant is because that's how most malware gets installed. Admittedly, XP and earlier skip the root password part, but that's been dealt with now by Vista.
It is NOT easy to set up a secure Windows machine. It requires at least FOUR antispyware tools, at least one antivirus (maybe two for a second opinion since the first one gives false positives), one firewall (preferably hardware), one antitrojan tool, one browser hijack tool, one rootkit revealer, and a different browser than IE, and several hardening steps requiring turning off services and editing the Registry
And yet, I've been using windows for 12 years, have never done any of those things beyond running a firewall, and have had zero problems. How do you explain that? Oh that's right, I'm a lying moron.
Another goddamn Microsoft shill without a clue...
"Moron", "Godddamn Shill". You're a class act, you really are. What makes me a shill, by the way? Do you have some evidence I'm being paid to say this, or do you just think that you are so obviously correct that no one could ever disagree with you except those paid to do so? I call people like that zealots.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
If you say the best source of help was Usenet, then ..? Was this in 1993? Usenet doesn't count, IMO.
I've never experienced "RTFM Noob" because I've never asked a redundant question without trying to search first. And searching these days almost always gets you the answers you need because there's so many thousands of sites dedicated to supporting Linux.
The thing is, these support forums are a free service and all you have to do is use some common sense. The busier forums can get out of hand fast if everyone could just post the same old bullshit problems without trying to search. I really can't blame people for getting frustrated with that, and you find that it's not limited to Linux help forums.
While "mass adoption" of Linux and OSS would be nice, I don't really care if you use it or not. A lot of OSS fans feel the same way.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Zero that you know of!
I'll concede that point, but I would be happy enough to put a hundred pound bet on that any virus scan of one of my windows machines would not find any virus'.
My XP experience is limited to cleaning up other peoples crapware-infested machines
That's mainly my experience with XP as well, outside of work.
Given the huge number of IE and Outlook exploits that are floating around, though, odds are good that there were some remote infections there as well.
You're probably right, although IE is certainly a lot better than it used to be. As I said earlier, most of the active X horrors are disabled now, or at least require user conformation. Outlook is another matter, and I personally recommend people use a web based e-mail service. To be fair though, outlook is not windows, and more and more home users are using web mail now anyway. Besides, all mail clients seem to have their share of flaws.
in addition to the fact that you're leaving yourself open to the other 5% of problems, note that you're advocating securing the user, rather than the system. That's fine, when you're dealing with users that you can train effectively, but it's not a practical approach in general.
Again, I agree with you, but I don't think you can secure the system. I'm typing this on an Ubuntu system. If you write a program, I download the deb and install it, and your program asks for my root password and I type it in, You can do pretty much anything you want with my system. Now the only difference in this scenario between Linux and XP is that Linux asks for the password before I install anything. That's good practice, to be sure, but it still can't protect me from myself. Besides, Vista does this too. I actually had some lunatic tell me the other day that the obvious solution was for MS to set up repositories and only allow windows to install software from there. Can you imagine the lawsuits?
Ultimately, I can't think of a model that allows users to control their systems and still protects them from malware, adware, spyware, and any other $ware you care to mention. Linux certainly doesn't.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
What an apt title. /etc/localtime should have been a symlink to the proper timezone file under /usr/share/zoneinfo. No manual setup was required on my Gentoo desktop, after emerging the timezone-data ebuild. Unfortunately, copying, and not linking, is in the current installation instructions...
This is because
Are you for real? Do you actually work for a living at a place more advanced than, say, Taco Bell? At a company where sometimes, employees need to attend meetings?
So you used Windows 98 and 2000 for 12 years?
No, there was this thing called windows 95. Perhaps you've heard of it? Mind you, you come across as being about 12 years old yourself, so perhaps you haven't. I still use windows 2000 on one of my machines, by the way.
"I use Linux around 80 percent of the time myself"
Bullshit.
Painful for you to believe, I know, but it's true. I'm typing this on Ubuntu Edgy.
You're a Microsoft shill. You're a liar.
You're the second person to accuse me of that in this discussion. I'm curious, perhaps someone else reading this could help me out, how does one become an MS shill? Is there an online application form or something? Because really, if someone wants to pay me for doing this, I'm in. Actually, someone already is, since I'm typing this at work, but I don't work for Microsoft.
Bullshit.
I can tell you were on the debating team at school. Truly you have exposed the fragility and incoherence of my position with your brilliantly reasoned and incisive logic.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
Yes, and OMG! The slider let me choose between the glorious resolutions:
This is because the monitor is not known, so Ubuntu only shows a handful of "safe" values. Come back when you actually know what we are discussing here.
c++;
No, it shouldn't. A symlink breaks the system if
And it's also silly, because if you rely on
Regards,
--
*Art
Could anyone explain to me, why Dell is absoultely have to sell a linux pc? What's wrong with building one from retail (or better, OEM - if you can get it) hardware? And what's wrong with letting small companies handle that, if you find hardware scary?
There is one and, believe it or not, it's the ideas behind what MS called Palladium. If implemented correctly, it would be easy to isolate each application in its own virtual machine, giving it an environment that wouldn't allow it to do anything bad.
The idea is to use the virtualization technology that Intel and AMD have added in their latest processors (at Microsoft's request!). Using the VT stuff, you can boot one OS, then after that's up and running start a hypervisor and slide it underneath the running OS, so the main OS continues executing inside a virtual machine. Then when you fire up a web browser, you can have the hypervisor create a new VM for it, start a very minimal and highly secure OS, map in just the system components it needs (libraries and such), and have the hypervisor "export" its display for the main OS to put in a window. And all of this can even be done pretty efficiently.
Any files that jailed apps create would disappear with the VM (unless other arrangements were specifically made) and the system libraries that are mapped in would be configured as copy-on-write, so that modifications would die with the VM.
To Microsoft's ideas, I'd add some of the ideas from the OLPC "Bitfrost" security model. Effectively, it allows each VM to see only the files that the user specificially authorizes it to see, and does so in a way which is transparent to the user and very easy to use.
Of course, the downside of all of this is that if the company making all of the software wants to, they can write apps that run in VMs so that the user cannot modify or debug any of the code that runs in them. Add a VT-aware TPM that can attest the state of the VM and bind keys to that state and you have a perfect solution for DRM that cannot be cracked through software means (hardware hacking is still an option).
Getting back to the question of securing Windows vs. securing Linux, I certainly agree that Linux isn't inherently much more resistant to malware infection by user action, but there are a couple of characteristics of Linux systems that make a difference.
The first is the fact that most Linux software is installed via the central repository model, and it's relatively easy to convince users that they shouldn't trust software that wants to be installed in any other way -- especially since the central repository contains pretty much everything they're ever need. Even stronger, if you want to it's easy to arrange it so that users can't install software any other way. My kids, for example, have sudo privileges to run synaptic, but they can't run dpkg.
Obviously that doesn't work for Windows with Microsoft being the controller of the repository, but it works perfectly well for open source. Actually, even in the case of Windows I could see the model being used, especially if a few repository "aggregators" popped up who just acted as trustworthy distributors/sellers. But that's not the way it works, and I don't think it's going to happen any time soon.
The second is the fact that Linux is harder to write malware for -- this is the beneficial flip side of the "many distros" problem that vendors of commercial Linux software face. Of coure, if one Linux flavor really takes over, or the ongoing standardization efforts make significant progress, this "advantage" will disappear.
Of course, the real reason Linux isn't a malware target at present is that Windows is a much *better* target. From the perspective of a malware author, it makes more sense to put X hours of effort into improving your malware's ability to infect Windows machines than it does to put the same hours into grabbing some fraction of a fraction of the already-small Linux "market".
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
This only happens when frequency is set manually, and in recent X versions it is only necessary for some unusual, non-standard configurations -- same as with Windows (I have last time edited a modeline when connecting an old Sun monitor that didn't even have a VGA connector on its cable). Modern monitors usually display a giant floating "FREQUENCY OUT OF RANGE", "UNSUPPORTED VIDEO MODE" or similar message when this happens. Ctrl Alt + and Ctrl Alt - allow the user to cycle through resolutions, so he usually doesn't even lose graphics, he just sees a large scrolly desktop. However even if the user managed to replace the video card and keep the previously configured "unusual" monitor, it will just set the same mode (though the card may refuse to support it -- but then same would happen on Windows, user will have to reset to the minimal mode and go from there either way). Those things would be beyond the newbie's abilities to configure on any OS, so he would have to reset the configuration and settle for one of the default video modes.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The second is the fact that Linux is harder to write malware for -- this is the beneficial flip side of the "many distros" problem that vendors of commercial Linux software face. Of coure, if one Linux flavor really takes over, or the ongoing standardization efforts make significant progress, this "advantage" will disappear.
Of course, the real reason Linux isn't a malware target at present is that Windows is a much *better* target. From the perspective of a malware author, it makes more sense to put X hours of effort into improving your malware's ability to infect Windows machines than it does to put the same hours into grabbing some fraction of a fraction of the already-small Linux "market".
Well, we appear to have reached something at least approaching agreement, and I don't really have much to add, but I had to smile when I saw this. I agree completely with both points, but I've never dared voice them in a Slashdot discussion. This is due to the fact that there is simply no faster way to attract a dozen responses calling you an MS astroturfer than to put forward the "Linux would have more malware if it had a higher market share" argument. Mind you, I've been told MS are paying me twice already today.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
Man pages were, however, (at least for me) the easiest way to find out what the flag in your sig meant!
Well, I'm not going to try to defend slashdot groupthink (heck, I understand and like Trusted Computing, definitely not a popular opinion here), but I've been known to call people astroturfers for that as well, because they typically state it as "If Linux had the market share Windows has, it would have just as much malware" and definitely don't believe that is true. Linux *is* basically more secure against malware that isn't deliberately installed by users, and the way in which software is installed on Linux tends to reduce the likelihood of user-installed malware as well.
My point was that if Linux was bigger it would be a target for malware, whereas now it's not. I wasn't saying that malware would be very successful on Linux.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I did this from a terminal window from within KDE.
I already had X Windows open using the vesa driver which Debian had already configured for me without my intervention... my desktop looked just fine. But no nvidia driver, no OpenGL.
WTF's up with Ubuntu?
NOTE: my motherboard is an integrated Biostar GeForce 6100 AM2... and the reason I switched from FC6 is that it couldn't be made to run either with the Fedora kmod-nvidia or the Nvidia binary driver packages, even with extensive help from both Fedora or Nvidia forums. (hopefully, that's been fixed)
Tech Public Policy stuff
...and this is different from Windows how?
Since when did grandma, dad, mum or your sister install graphics drivers on windows?
Yessir! My Father, a Grandpa incidentally, switched from pen and paper design to CAD back in the 70s. Helped invent it really. I have no doubt his feedback on the early programs had an effect on how they work today. Oh, and no, they didn't have Windows. Fortran and Cobol. I remember trying to make heads or tails of his Fortran books when I was in high school, and the computer was something Mr. Spock got answers from.
Garry AKA -Phoenix- Rising Above the Flames
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
Almost any problem can be defined in a way that makes it unsolvable. There is no need to support all Linux distros. All that is required is to work with any distribution company, say Ubuntu. Work with them to insure open source drivers are available for the hardware components in a subset of offered systems. Ubuntu could provide purchasable support and the Ubuntu community would provide primary support as they do today. Establish this as a certification program for distros. Once open source drivers exist it will be a simple problem for users to install the distro of their choice. Open source applications would be supported as they are today by the developers, community and professional support companies. What's needed is cooperation with the open source community and not forcing users to Microsoft software. The problem is solvable without dupplicating harware venders existing support structure.
Thank a veteran -- George
I never said that I did not want to mess with detailed setup. The best way to learn about what really happens on a linux box is to do it the hard way. What I meant was that I hate having to scour the entire internet just to find out all of the configuration options that are available to perform a particular task. (Just knowing that the configuration directives existed would have been a great start.) I shouldn't have to search random posts on nvnews.net to figure out how to get my dual LCD's working. There should be an easy to find (and easy to read) manual somewhere, since I am obviously not the first person to run dual LCD's over DVI on an NVidia card in Slackware (or any other distro).
All I am saying is that for an experienced linux user this is easy. I'm used to using google to find solutions to fix obscure error messages. For someone who just wants to add a second monitor to their linux box without tinkering with xorg.conf, this approaches impossible.
--guru
But that's just the thing.
) and you're up and running.
If, say, Dell started shipping Ubunty, or any other dist for that matter, they could have it work perfectly out of the box. No problematic configuration needed.
Also, if you bought a Dell-uppgrade, they could deliver install-scripts for it that has been tested for compatability against all their Ubuntu-boxes...
You'd only have to worry about manually editing config-files if you choose to go with unsupported 3'rd party hardware, just like with OS X and, to some extent, Windows.
What would be really good, though, is if all the distributions could agree on a standard system for delivering config-files with hardware.
That way, as long as the hardware is autodetected, all you'd have to do is to run the install-script from the installation-cd or download the install-script from the hardware-vendor(Nvidia,Ati,Dell,Creative,Whatever
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
You can't support all distributions, nor do you need to support any, just provide working hardware, particularly laptops.
What part of "you can select the monitor" didn't you understand? If the specific monitor isn't on the list, a) you bought unsupported hardware, and b) select one that IS on the list that is close enough to enable the necessary resolution.
Come back when you bother to check out what the OS can do before running your mouth.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Glad you admit to being a lying moron.
MOST malware is installed via ActiveX controls via Internet Explorer. It is not because every one of the adults using Windows is visiting porn sites, prurient individuals like yourself fantasies not withstanding.
While KIDS might be downloading "Nude Celeb Viewer", most adults are not. Many adults might be doing stupid stuff occasionally, but the various worms that devastated Windows a couple years were the result of Microsoft CRAP software practices, nothing more.
"Admittedly, XP and earlier skip the root password part"
No shit.
You imply that since you managed to run for 12 years with NO protection that therefore Windows users don't need any of that stuff. That is BULLSHIT that no professional in the IT industry can take seriously. It's the mark of a shill that he would even suggest such a thing. Even Microsoft wouldn't make that stupid a statement.
You're a shill whether you're actually paid by Microsoft or not. If you make your living on Windows and have some stupid emotional attachment to this crap and feel you have to defend it at every opportunity regardless of the facts, you're a shill.
I criticize Linux frequently for its failings - specifically, the failings of the distros in testing and various design decisions. I don't try to excuse its limitations. I've repeatedly said the following:
Windows is CRAP.
Linux is ALSO CRAP.
BUT...Linux is FREE crap.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Smart remarks don't change the fact that you're a liar and a shill.
You get your jollies off bullshitting people about Windows and attacking Linux. That makes you a shill and a troll.
I had to go straighten out a client yesterday who had a lousy little power failure. Windows hosed its Registry. How the FUCK do you hose a Registry from a simple power failure with no damage to the machine in any other respect? What do Microsoft programmers do - say, "Oh, gee, lost power, I guess I should write crap to the Registry now before my process dies?"
You NEVER see Linux screw up like that. The worst that can happen is that a Linux program has a lock file open which isn't removed when an application dies, and the programmer was too dumb to check for the same running process on startup to remove the lock file.
No. Instead Windows manages to boot to the Welcome screen and then shows NO accounts to login with! Brilliant! And NOTHING fixes that - not even a fucking REPAIR INSTALL AFTER a System Restore to an earlier day! Not only that, if you boot to Safe Mode - the one place where you'd like to run the goddamn System File Check, you CAN'T run SFC from Safe Mode without getting a braindead error message that says the RPC Server is not available WHEN SAID RPC SERVER IS RUNNING!
No way you can hose Linux THAT badly from a simple power failure.
Windows is TOTAL SHIT. And anybody who supports this TOTAL SHIT IS a TOTAL SHIT.
Am I getting through to you, moron?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Please tell me exactly where in Ubuntu I can find this menu.
c++;
In Kubuntu, System Settings, under Computer Administration, Monitor and Display. You have tabs for Size, Orientation and Positioning, Color and Gamma, Hardware (which is where the graphics card and driver can be selected - you even have the option of native or proprietary drivers, if they have been detected), and Power Saving.
It's really very similar to Windows - except under Linux, you don't have the proprietary tabs put in by the video card manufacturer for advanced configuration of the card.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Oh, Kubuntu has a lot of desktop polish. Really very well integrated. And I liked the gui samba configuration tool.
No tyrant thrives when every subject says no.
Could anyone explain to me, why Dell is absoultely have to sell a linux pc?
Because people like me, who have owned DOS since version 1.0 and Windows from version 1.1, have had it up to here with the latest "requirements" for WinVista and won't buy their "new" OS.
If they want us as customers, they have to sell us Linux PCs, or become an Apple distributor (and sell BSD).
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I'd say KDE is the desktop polish. Basically Kubuntu pretty much looks like any other KDE-based distro I've used.
When they go outside KDE, they start to show some flaws in design and testing.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Yep, but you see, I never used Kubuntu, this is why I mentioned from the beginning that we were not talking about the same thing.
I have no idea why such settings does not exist in Ubuntu, but it would be nice.
c++;
Yeah, Ubuntu is GNOME-based, and I've never used GNOME, so I don't know where they stash that stuff or even if they have it.
But you'd think if Kubuntu has it - even if it's based on KDE - that the Ubuntu people would have matched the capability in GNOME. I mean, why not?
This is why I think (K)Ubuntu is "dumbed down" over other Linux distros. They spend too much time changing shit that doesn't NEED to be changed (like restricting root and minimizing the system settings - you don't get a full KDE control panel by default in Kubuntu and there's nothing like the Mandriva Control Center or SUSE YAST) rather than concentrating on maximizing capabilities.
(K)Ubuntu is "okay" - otherwise I wouldn't be using it at all - it doesn't take much to make me dump a distro. The fact that it's popular means there's an active community and a hell of a lot of forums and assistance if something goes wrong. But it just can't compete capability-wise with Mandriva or SUSE once you get past the basics.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Furthermore, not having to buy anti-virus programs, anti-spam programs, and expensive operating systems makes a big big difference to many many low income budgets (including libraries, social assistance organisations, schools, and the like).
And I guess the other argument would be something like reliability. I am told that between xp and linux, or linux and vista (for now), linux is more reliable.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
You're wasting your time replying pal. Just try reading this thread. He accused me of being an MS shill and a liar because I voiced the opinion that a lot of malware is installed by end users on purpose after they are duped into doing so (you know, toolabrs for IE and the like). When I replied to him, his idea of rebuttal was to quote my post and insert "bullshit" every other line, then go off on some rant about a power failure corrupting the registry.
A reasoned argument is wasted on this person. He is of the "anyone who disagrees with me is dumb or lying" mindset.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
Thanks for replying- I found that accusation sooo annoying- And yeah, I too have found out since then that he is on a mission. And boy is he wrong in this post.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
My point was you could build your own pc in a few minutes and install linux in a little more than a few minutes. Your mom can't, but once she has a problem with her pc she'll call you first, tech support last - if she can't reach you, so if you're helping her already you can build her a pc. You boss can't build his own pc either, but he has an IT department to care about it. Basically, why do you need Dell?
Basically, why do you need Dell?
Because, like most consumers, I'm lazy.
Look, I just want a laptop that works. I don't care why. I don't want to have to figure out case sizing, motherboard comparison, which card for graphics.
I just want it to work.
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Wow. I hope your mom doesn't have any problems with her pc.
She has a Mac. And, as a result, I don't get late night tech support calls.
... or someone really lonely ...
Only someone insane would have their mom get a Win machine
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