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Microsoft Free, One Year Later
madgreek writes "Last year I wrote of my switch from XP to Ubuntu at work. Now a year later, I am back to reflect on one year of being extremely productive at work using (almost) nothing but open source software in a Microsoft world."
Linux has a Visio Clone: Kvivio. Import the Cisco Symbols from DIA and you are all set.
the audio skipping sounds related to a pulseaudio problem people were having.
Updating to the latest kernel in hardy-proposed fixed that for me.
A two minute search on Google yields CDBurnerXP as a freeware CD burning tool and Daemon tools as an image mounting tool for Windows.
It might not be free as in speech, but it sure is free as in beer.
Jean-Francois Im's blog
Google for "read ISO Windows" gave this link as the first hit. It has a link to an ISO mounting utility from Microsoft:
http://weblogs.asp.net/pleloup/archive/2004/01/15/58918.aspx
Funny, a friend of mine had a similar experience with XP SP2 the other day. After it fell over he tried to reinstall it. Turns out windows didn't include the drivers for his network card, sound card, video card etc... and since this is a a rather old box he couldn't find the CDs with all the drivers on them. Kinda sucks when you can't get on the net to search for them. Anyway, I gave him an Ubuntu CD and it booted fine , got him on the internet without installing a thing, and allowed him to download the drivers he needed to his ipod (the guy is addicted to his windows games ). After 48 hours since the first attempt at installing windows he had his system back up an running, with a little help from ubuntu.
Of course he probably has a couple of pets on the thing now seeing that it took him quite a while to even get it into a state where it would accept updates and we all have external IPs.
For reference, on the latest Ubuntu I have my 3D acceleration ( on both screens ) and wireless on the laptop out of the box. My main gripe is the flash plugin for firefox crashing every now and then, but I'm guessing that is really adobe's fault.
Knowledge is power:
- Windows Reskits have cdburn.exe and dvdburn.exe - very capable tools for recording media
- D-Tools is free and is an excellent tool
I have multiple machines running Linux and Windows (this particular laptop I am posting a reply from is a Linux only Thinkpad) and Linux is not really more desktop capable. I am playing the devil's advocate here: good for you if you managed to figure out that Linux works better for you.
It doesn't work better for everyone. I need Photoshop (Sorry, I am not too bright to use GIMP), I need a couple of my RTS games that I play casually and I need my Windows Rhapsody client. I use wine for Photoshop, Caesar3 and I use Vmware + Windows 2000 for Rhapsody. I also need Windows to watch streaming Netflix and I'll be creating an XP image in the near future just for Netflix (Netflix supports only WinXP and higher).
So now do you get an idea? Linux isn't desktop ready because a majority of the rest of the world isn't ready for Linux. This is a 100% Linux laptop and still I need to rely on wine and Vmware to use the applications I really want/need.
My first Linux distribution was Redhat 5.2 and it's been quite a journey - Ubuntu 8.04 for me is the closest I've seen to a perfect Linux desktop but as much as I love it and use workarounds to keep using it fulltime, the distribution isn't there yet. Linux *isn't* there yet. I want it to be and I'll rejoice the day I have to stop using my workarounds.
I love using my Linux laptop over my windows machines at home (one's a high end gaming machine, the other's a pretty decent Windows Media Center box) and I love using my Linux machines at work (5 boxes running Linux and one Windows notebook) but I do keep windows around for Windows does tasks that Linux cannot do for me yet.
I usually bash Microsoft and Windows freely but I also do acknowledge Linux's shortcomings. If you believe otherwise, well, there is this certain cliche about ignorance and bliss...
...And that's why Linux won't yet replace desktop Windows! True Story. Wow... so much effort. So little accuracy.It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
It is also possible to authenticate against an open ldap server (actually osx uses open ldap) and setup kerberos. The LDAP schema (i suck with ldap) has two fields that are used to push down policies. Apple uses an XML format to describe all the policies which can be used even without OS X server.
The reason I feel that OS X is not ready for big environments is that it's inflexible. You can only hack around so many "features". For instance, we had a hack that's worked for 10.4 to bind to a Novell eDir server on campus without using Novell's schema changes for Mac support. We do not control the Novell servers. However, this appears to be broken in Leopard (10.5).
For the most part, we've had good luck migrating from a windows and mac environment to Mac only. I work for the computer science department at a university. I did not make the decision to migrate as I would have chosen BSD or maybe Linux based on our needs.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
If you want to "taste a problem" then try converting a corporation to Linux desktops (as opposed to say running a corporate web server). There is a reason it's called "vendor lock-in". Not only do you have to retrain thousands of people you also need to manage user access as good as windows for large numbers of people quickly with fine granuality. This is before you even think of rewriting tens (if not hundreds) of millions of lines of windows style glue.
"Linux can and does work well in a corporate environment."
Agreed (or at least it does where I work), however it's still along way from breaking the MS 'lock' on the corporate desktop and there doesn't seem to be any 'killer app' to drive the corporates toward a Linux desktop (unless your counting Vista). .
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I think if that was the only thing keeping me on MS's suckware, I would find a way around it.
The main reason businesses run Windows is the same exact reason most home owners run Windows, because it is the default OS. They never give it much consideration to begin with, it's just what comes in the box.
The fact that this monopoly has been allowed to continue all these years is outrageous, really. If 90% of people owned Fords, it would mean that either Fords are way better or that they have unfair competitive advantage.
The Microsoft monopoly in the OS market is the single greatest problem in technology today and the negative effects of the monopoly cascades in every direction.
Visio became popular, not based so much on its merits, which I'm sure it's a fine piece of software, but more because MS leverages the Windows monopoly to push software of every sort. People then used Visio and the closed, proprietary formats of Visio and now because they have so much work stored in these formats it is a deterrent to considering an alternative OS. The problem comes full circle.
So there's my anti-Microsoft rant for the day
FAQs are evil.
It's called win-get: http://windows-get.sourceforge.net/ Of course, I know nothing about it, since I use Linux, but, it does exist.
-- tonybaldwin.me
http://windows-get.sourceforge.net/
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=572739&cid=23649597
The problem is that nobody knows about it, and it doesn't come with Windows, and since it isn't iTunes or BonziBuddySpywareGetVideoPlayer2000, few will even be interested in it.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
My ubuntu installs all updated to RC1 of Firefox last week.
So... why are you still on Firefox 3b5?
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497