GNU Hands Out Trisquel At a Microsoft Store

alexanderb writes "Remember GNU's Windows 8 launch trick or treat in October, where Free Software Foundation activists handed out gratis copies of the free (as in freedom) system Trisquel GNU/Linux? Well, GNU returned for a Microsoft store's 'Tech for Tots' session on December 20th in Boston, MA. Like in October, the activists (accompanied by a gnu) handed out gratis copies of Trisquel GNU/Linux — a free alternative to Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 8."

Comments

Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every new computer at the store includes Windows, so you have to pay for it even if you don't want it.

(Yes, I know you can build your own computer, but most people don't).

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Sir_Sri]

No, the problem is that they're trying to compete with windows 8.

The best way to compete with windows 8 is let people try it.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Penguinisto]

True, but every new Linux user will start demanding either that the OEMs stop bundling Windows, find one more amenable to their requests, or they'll start building their own boxes.

It also means that each new Linux user isn't buying MS Office, using IE, or all the other bits and bobs that Microsoft also sells.

You gotta eat that elephant one bite at a time, yanno?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Austerity Empowers]

Then you need to give up on the Microsoft store, and focus on corporate consumers and IT admins, because those are the people who keep MS alive. MS at the consumer level is a joke, no one WANTS their product, it's just the path of least resistance. Get it out of the corporation and your task is complete, but IT admins are well and truly sold on ActiveDirectory and their ability to micromanage settings on user machines at an individual basis. Sometimes I can't argue with them either, as users really are retarded sometimes.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[OhPlz]

Every new computer at the store includes Windows, so you have to pay for it even if you don't want it.

That must suck for people buying Macs.

Face it, the demand isn't there. That's the problem that's being ignored. Big names like Dell have tried to market systems with alternative operating systems, but the sales don't justify it. I can't see how sending two guys and a furry to intercept shoppers is going to help either. If anything, having people see them getting hauled off by security is going to put a negative image in people's minds.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I'm a sole developer in my shop (in addition to being our Linux server admin). My workstations all run Debian and I'm about as pro-GNU as you can get. With that said, if it weren't for Active Directory keeping our end users from random acts of jackassery, our entire organization would have degraded to a Mad Max-esque wasteland where roving bands of IT geeks roam the cubicle ranges keeping everything in check manually.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[hairyfish]

To beat any incumbent you need to offer better products. MS isn't just a Windows desktop, it's the server, terminal services, AD, DNS, DHCP, Exchange, SQL, IIS, .Net, Sharepoint and a whole hoard of other stuff that works, and works nicely together with very little effort. As much as the Linux fanbase would this not be true, there is no linux solution that even comes close to this. Sure you could cobble together a bit of this and a bit of that that sort does something similar, but it takes 10x as much effort, only has 1/2 as many features, and is a nightmare to support or troubleshoot when it breaks (or a new guy comes onboard and has to figure out your homebrew mess you created.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Eirenarch]

I once had to write 40 pages in Open Office. The next day I ordered MS Office. I'd like to apologize to friends and family for polluting their machines with Open Office. I swear it looked like a good idea before I actually used it.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[DaHat]

If I had mod points... they would be yours. Well said.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Microlith]

Big names like Dell have tried to market systems with alternative operating systems

They haven't, really. They make half-hearted attempts and go back and forth with Microsoft on it. In the server land it's another deal entirely but in the consumer world, Dell is pretty much balls-to-the-wall Microsoft.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to expand on that?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[hairyfeet]

Exactly. Hell look at how Linux as an "OS" is managed, you got fifty billion little fiefdoms, NONE of which are ruled by one grouped or even really has to talk to one another on a regular basis, and then all these "little programs written by little groups with their own agendas" get slapped together and called an OS.

Now this works just great on a SERVER for several reasons. 1.- Removing the GUI and sound subsystems cuts out a LOT of complexity and overhead, 2.- You can "mix and match" to build a system that is right for the jobs your company is doing, 3.- MSFT prices itself very stupidly in that market, with Windows SBS costing $400 a pop, so 4.- Even after hiring an admin at 6 figures you are still gonna be ahead in a large org by the money you save not dealing with the mess that is Windows Server licensing.

But on the desktop this is exactly reversed, you HAVE to have a well built GUI and sound subsystem and frankly X-Server is a crashy mess, and Pulse is a bad joke, the users WILL NOT put up with CLI fiddling and "open up Bash and type" like a server admin would, and finally the cost for most users is practically zero because with trialware the OEMs end up getting windows Home and Basic for free, maybe even make a few bucks which they can use to lower the price.

So I'm sorry but Linux just isn't in the same league as OSX and Windows when it comes to ease of use, user friendliness, stability..its just not even in the same ballpark. I would argue that "free as in freedom" all volunteer doing your own thing nature that so many in the Linux community prizes so highly also insures that it never ever will be up to the task of standing in the same arena with OSX and Windows, because you just can't have the level of QA and QC with everybody doing their own thing. The X-Server guys don't listen to the DE guys who don't listen to the Pulse guys and so on so all it takes is ONE of these groups to change a pointer in the right spot and the whole thing falls down like a house of cards. Go look up the rant Thom that runs OSNews had when he tried to watch a video while chatting and the whole system crashed, its THAT kind of shit, probably caused by the video player team expecting something to be A when the X-Server team changed it to B, that gives Linux a bad rep.

I have said before and I'll say again not a single distro can pass the "Hairyfeet challenge" yet, not one. We take one of the user friendly distros like Ubuntu or PCLOS and install it side by side with Vista, along with a range of average software. We make sure ALL the drivers are working, then we update both to current. The vista machines WILL have 100% working drivers and software, the Linux system? Will be a mess. heck in just the last 5 years we've seen the devs gut both the DEs and the audio and wireless subsystems so good luck getting those systems to update without making a mess.

Until one can pass the Hairyfeet Challenge with flying colors, where every driver and every program still runs without a single forum hunt? Then I'm sorry but your product simply isn't in the same league, end of story.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I once had to write 40 pages in MS Office. The next day I learned LaTeX. I'm not apologising.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[SteveFoerster]

All other things being equal I suppose I'd prefer Micosoft Office to LibreOffice. But when price and freedom are considered, I'm happy with LibreOffice.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

look, you're pretty much saying 'BUT THEY DIDN'T DO ENOUGH' because they should completely abandon a component of the business model they've built for years because you just HAPPEN to like linux. Most who use it, don't. If they had, it would have caught on more and they would have been able to transition, but they didn't sell. It's that simple.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

It really is awful. Difficult to pin down exactly what the problem is but generally 'unintuitive' sums it up. The usual argument against that is that people have been 'trained' to use Microsoft Office so it seems more useable. But that's not it - I've happily used multiple versions of Word (Powerpoint, etc.), made a happy transition to the ribbon (sorry) as well as used Pages, Keynote and Numbers on Mac.

Open Office is just bad software.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[hairyfeet]

You got lucky friend, try making one of the bog standard DBs that SMBs use every day in Base and then get back to me. I tried making a copy of what I consider to be about the most bog standard DB you'll ever see is, the contact and customer info DB and the thing crashed more than it ran and corrupted the DB no less than 4 times before i gave up on it and consigned LO to be strictly for my home users, where little Billy is making a book report or grandpa is making a shopping list.

Because if you think LO Writer is painful you ain't seen nothing until your try Base and Calc, the OO.o/LO teams give writer the most love so if you think writer is bad then you haven't messed with the others, they are MUCH worse. In fact I'm seriously thinking about dropping LO altogether even for my home users and just pointing them at Google Docs, there they can do what tasks they have without messing with the horrible mess that is LO. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the LO guys as Sun basically let OO.o rot for several years so I figure its gonna take them a couple of years just to clean out the cruft and make it modern and modular, but that don't help my users now and right now LO just doesn't cut the mustard, which is why you saw governments like Germany going back to MS Office, because its really not in the same league as even MS Office 2K.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it isn'. I've written 15 pages in OO.o with no issue. It takes keyboard input, and produces unicode characters on the screen. Exactly what isn't working as stated?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the truth. FOSS often sucks with its default OOBE. Often requires hacking config files and such just to get it to work even close to commercial software.

The only benefit is zero cost, but not much more.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the best MS can do these days? Paid PR shills awaiting their chance on forums like Slashdot.

The tragedy is this. Even haters of MS have to agree XP and Win7 were fine operating systems, and a good basis to build a future business. Win8, and Microsoft's rush to clone every aspect of Apple's business models are running MS into the ground several years earlier than any sensible analyst thought inevitable.

When Android releases a desktop version sometime in 2013, running on the A15 generation of ARM chips from all the important SoC players, Microsoft and Intel are essentially finished. These two old dinosaurs won't disappear overnight, but their age of absolute dominance is ended, and all they have to look forward to is terminal decline.

Yes, today you can't do better than a Windows platform for serious, or heavy duty gaming apps. This situation wasn't created by MS, but users of windows. These same creative coding types have no incentive to stay with braindead Microsoft now.

CP/M and the Z80 once ruled all powerful too. A simple change in technology, not even 1% as important as the rise of ARM, destroyed the dominance of both almost overnight.

If MS had even one clue today, we wouldn't get the flood of shill posts seen here. The first half of 2013 will see 'blood in the water' at MS, as the company enters full panic mode. It will try to convince itself that it can turn around its fortunes in the same way as when it abandoned the interactive CDROM for the Internet (Prior to this, MS had bet the bank on the Internet being a bust, and the optical disk being the future). However, when MS throws its full weight behind ARM (as Apple will too), and knifes Intel multiple times in the back, its actions will simply strengthen the market success of Google (Android) and Apple. There is no room for a third successful player.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[tepples]

Google Docs works better.

I do a lot of my work while riding the bus with no Internet access. Does the offline part of Google Docs work better than Open Office or LibreOffice?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Eirenarch]

When I did this (late 2010) Open Office had some weird undo behavior when you had pictures in the document. You would do something like increase a font which would move pictures to new pages. Say you don't like it you press undo but things won't return to the previous state. It turns out that pictures had some kind of anchor or something that would not be affected by undo. Office 2010 was coming out and it had that killer live preview feature. On one side I had Open Office that could not do proper undo and on the other I had MS Office that could change formatting and undo it just by moving the cursor through the menu. In addition Open Office crashed when I had more than one OO program open. I wanted to work with Writer and Draw at the same time but it seems like a shared component or something caused them to crash.

Maybe things are much better now but I never bothered to check and probably never will.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Eirenarch]

This happened before LibreOffice. I did not use anything too advanced but when I used Draw and Writer at the same time something crashed bad :) I don't even want to think about Base.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I use LibreOffice every day. It works just fine. Every time I open Microsoft Office I'm baffled by the stupidity of Microsoft's changes.

What worked OK was MS Office 95/97. Nothing since then has worked well if you ask me.

They added activation headaches, hidden menus (I believe that was a 2000 versions), and then totally screwed up 2007. Then they fixed some issues in 2010 although largely left the major problems in tact (ribbon, but they did bring back file).

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[lister king of smeg]

I have written descent sized projects on Open/LibreOffice(.org) and never had a problem with it. What were your problems with it exactly? My only problem so far has been when i tried opening a MSWorks document and a recent bug with long load times for .RTF documents in LibreOffice.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[UnknownSoldier]

Not sure what the problem is.

I've written a 100+ page book with OpenOffice 2.x without any problems.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[OhPlz]

You admit that Dell treats the server market differently. Why is that? It's not because Microsoft has surrendered in the server market. If anything, Windows Server 2012 shows a lot of effort to compete in that space. Dell handles multiple environments in the server market because that's where the demand is. Dell's number one job is to make money. Linux makes money in the server realm.

Why is the consumer market different? It's because Dell's consumer customers are balls-to-the-wall Microsoft, even if they don't realize it. They want a PC that works like those their peers have and is a natural migration from their last PC. PC manufacturers targeting the consumer mass market aren't going to want to spend a fortune to generate demand for another operating system. This makes me think back to when IBM went to great lengths to get OS/2 into homes. It didn't work, and they went at it "full-hearted". It's a high risk in a market where the margins are razor thin. The slightest misstep can cost big time.

The fact that I cringe even using the term "Linux" doesn't help. I'm sure there's a small army of geeks that are ready to say it's the wrong term to use. Consumers are going to walk away if you start battles like that. That's not even getting into issues such as KDE vs Gnome vs Unity or this distro versus that distro and so on.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is demand. The problem is it is too complicated to mix and match. Apple's stuff sorta works because they have are not trying to sell Microsoft. Consumers get that. Consumers already are presented with too many decisions. Dell can't sell GNU/Linux. To the extent they offer it the solutions suck.

ThinkPenguin.com's the only company which is even offering a complete solution right now. Support, accessories, computers, etc.

The next closest competitors are Dell and maybe System76. Neither of which understand the problems behind shipping hardware dependent on non-free drivers/firmware. Consumers don't understand the problems with getting such hardware. However they do run into problems later and blame GNU/Linux. It's not GNU/Linux that is the problem. It's stupid companies, uninformed consumers, and MS FUD.

If you give a shit about "Linux" you don't buy from Dell, System76, or any other company that's shipping hardware dependent on proprietary crap. That's not going to give you a solid solution long term. The long term solution is going to be based on a free software stack. Anything short of that and your going to run into problems because of the design/support/development of the stack.

You can keep badmouthing GNU/Linux or make the decision to put your money where it counts and get something that works right (companies whom will actually support it and aren't shipping hardware targeted at Microsoft's OS).

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have the time or inclanation to bother correcting everything that's wrong with this post, but here's a few facts that run counter to your inane babbling:

*Windoze crashed constantly when I used it. The acronym BSOD is a household name, because of that "stability" on the MS desktop.

*OSX is a Unix based OS. It is, by its very design, in the same league as Linux.

*Linux doesn't have "a bad rep."

*Your statements are very biased and inaccurate, especially when saying that a Vista machine will run 100% perfectly.

I'm out of time, but i'm sure a bunch of people will pick-up where I left off and correct the rest of the fallacies in your post.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[B1oodAnge1]

Find me a windows system where every driver works without a single forum hunt... You're delusional. I use windows almost exclusively, mostly because I game a lot, and I have problems requiring forum hunting all the time.
Just today I've spent ages trying to get this stupid usb headset driver to work in 7x64. Apparently Rosewill still hasn't made it easy after however many years 7 has been out.

A normal user using Ubuntu or another well crafted distro will have a computer exactly as messed up as their windows computer would be.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe things are much better now but I never bothered to check and probably never will.

Just give Microsoft your credit card number and be done with it, then. I've been using Libreoffice since it came out and have been quite satisfied with it's performance. Performance , features , and stability have gotten much better since the Open Office developers split off and formed the LibreOffice project.

Getting out from under Sun's obstructive "leadership" was the best thing that ever happend to the project. Thanks Oracle!

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

will start demanding that teh OEMs stop bundling Windows

Why would they do that? It'll simply make the hardware cost more. Yes, those subsidies that all the crapware makers pay OEMs to get included on their Windows builds DO lower the price of the hardware to you. If you want to eliminate that avenue for crapware subsidies, then you should be prepared to pay more.

Much better to buy a windows system at a lower price and reimage it. And bonus - you'll have a legal copy of Windows in case there's some software you need to run on Windows that you can't find a suitable alternative for on Linux.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably just discovered that OO/LO is just not an exact copy of MS Office and your highly conditioned and inflexible mind could not handle the simple adjustment to a different system. The same applies to your friends and family.

OO/LO is great software. It must, however, be approached with an open and agile mind.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[shutdown -p now]

Speaking of better products, see whether you can read this until the end without laughing out loud. Personally, I broke at the point where they compared FSF membership card to a $50 iTunes card. I mean, seriously?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Find me a windows system where every driver works without a single forum hunt...

You'll think I'm being sarcastic... but I'm really not:

http://www.apple.com/imac

I haven't yet seen Windows driver issues with Win7 + bootcamp on a 27" Core i7 imac. Apple goes to great pains to make sure the drivers are in good working order for windows 7 and bootcamp. Haven't had to do a single forum hunt, and the drivers work great under Bootcamp, and under VMWare.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Microlith]

Hell look at how Linux as an "OS" is managed, you got fifty billion little fiefdoms, NONE of which are ruled by one grouped or even really has to talk to one another on a regular basis, and then all these "little programs written by little groups with their own agendas" get slapped together and called an OS.

Ah, and the spewing of hate begins. These diverse distros don't really matter because all the "communication" happens in the projects that these distros are comprised of. But the only ones that really matter these days are Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, and Fedora. In the enterprise space, it's RHEL and SuSE. Your commentary here is toothless.

I'm sorry but Linux just isn't in the same league as OSX and Windows when it comes to ease of use, user friendliness, stability..its just not even in the same ballpark.

It's not there yet. So what. Say something insightful or original for once man, this certainly isn't. Of course, Canonical is trying hard to get there.

I would argue that "free as in freedom" all volunteer doing your own thing nature that so many in the Linux community prizes so highly also insures that it never ever will be up to the task of standing in the same arena with OSX and Windows

Which is why distros are so important.

you just can't have the level of QA and QC with everybody doing their own thing.

Most vocal criticism from someone who apparently fails to understand development. Each of the independent projects does its own thing and stable versions are codified into a distro release. That release is then QA'd.

The X-Server guys don't listen to the DE guys

Actually they are, which is why Wayland is coming along. The DE guys aren't using much of the functionality that exists from the days of X11 yore, so Wayland omits it.

who don't listen to the Pulse guys

You think in a very set and staid "the world works only when it is done like Microsoft or Apple" mindset. And they succeed mostly either because of marketing or monopoly force.

all it takes is ONE of these groups to change a pointer in the right spot and the whole thing falls down like a house of cards.

Bullshit. But this is coming from the guy who thought that some developer in a core library would be able to undetectably target Steam and cause it and only it to crash out of some misguided hate.

Go look up the rant Thom that runs OSNews had when he tried to watch a video while chatting and the whole system crashed, its THAT kind of shit, probably caused by the video player team expecting something to be A when the X-Server team changed it to B, that gives Linux a bad rep.

I'd be curious as to what graphics drivers he was using. If they were closed source, then it's the vendor's fault most likely.

the "Hairyfeet challenge"

And I suspect once one gets close you'll move the goalposts. I suspect you never actually want to see Linux pass.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Microlith]

Are you hairyfeet's sockpuppet account?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Microlith]

It's because Dell's consumer customers are balls-to-the-wall Microsoft, even if they don't realize it.

Of course. When you have a monopoly like Microsoft does, consumers don't have a choice. Microsoft absolutely doesn't have a monopoly in the server space.

PC manufacturers targeting the consumer mass market aren't going to want to spend a fortune to generate demand for another operating system.

Sure, and they can keep themselves tied to Microsoft's boat and accept as they get dragged down along with them.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[cbhacking]

I just built a from-scratch brand new system. Every part from the mobo to the graphics card is current-generation and fairly high-end. While Win7 SP1 didn't have the drivers out of the box to use its network interface (somewhat surprisingly; I wouldn't have expected the mobo's built-in gigabit Ethernet to be that different from those in the days of Win7 and on older PCs Win7 always recognized the network for me), Win8 did. It also supported the graphics card (I installed the Catalyst drivers anyhow because I wanted more control over it, but the system worked fine without, but that was just a short trip to amd.com), SSD, USB3, USB headest (Logitech), etc. Not a single unknown item in Device Manager after Windows Update (automatically!) pulled the drivers for a few peripherals. This is absolutely a 64-bit system (32GB of RAM...)

So, system found. Not sure what's wrong with yours. I didn't even do any research beyond checking the Newegg and Amazon reviews.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[realityimpaired]

There is demand. The problem is it is too complicated to mix and match. Apple's stuff sorta works because they have are not trying to sell Microsoft. Consumers get that. Consumers already are presented with too many decisions. Dell can't sell GNU/Linux. To the extent they offer it the solutions suck.

... I ordered a Dell laptop with Linux preinstalled on it this afternoon. $319 for a 15" laptop, and the same configuration with Windows 7 on it was $50 more. Dell does sell Linux on hardware that consumers would want, but they put it in the small/medium business section of their website. And to address another point you made, everything that laptop has in it is Intel reference hardware... given how well Intel is supporting/developping for Linux, I think that says Dell understands very well the importance of not relying on proprietary binary blobs for drivers.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[crutchy]

have to agree with most of what you say, except for your implication that its a bad thing. i think its great that linux pwns the server space and windows/mac owns the desktop, and i'm a linux advocate.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Billly Gates]

Windows 7 does work really well in this regard.

For awhile with Ubuntu Linux had an advantage. XP really is dated with driver detection but considering it is form 2001 how would it know what a Firewall 800 card is or a SATA?

Since it is the next XP, I wonder in 2019 when IT people and loyalist try to backforce it on an futuristic system how it will work? If MS is cancelling SP 2 for Windows 7 how is that going to work out?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[StayFrosty]

Sure you could cobble together a bit of this and a bit of that that sort does something similar, but it takes 10x as much effort, only has 1/2 as many features, and is a nightmare to support or troubleshoot when it breaks (or a new guy comes onboard and has to figure out your homebrew mess you created.

It's not cobbling stuff together, it's a different thought process for tackling a problem. Rather than having one big mess provided by Microsoft, you have lots of individual parts that do one thing well and are configured to work together--see the LAMP stack for an excellent example.

A new employee doesn't have to figure out the "homebrew" mess, they just have to know how to manage the application(s) they are responsible for--A skill that is vastly lacking with most Windows Server admins I have met--no, rebooting a server does not "fix" the fact that every 5 days the server is at 5% load with 95% memory utilization.

Most of Microsoft's problems in the server space is that the products ship with 10x more "features" enabled than are actually needed. This makes for loads of time disabling things or having vulnerable servers. A properly managed unix-based solution usually has 100% of the needed requirement--no more, no less. This limits exposure to security issues and limits the effects of bugs or bad code on the overall health of the system.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

What bullshit. Shills try hard to ignore lack of commercial advertising, unethical business practices, market inertia, platform lockin and everything else just to say "it's because of a lack of demand, nobody wants to use it!!"

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

And, Ubuntu sure showed its users how much they matter when searches (including local file searches) can be sent to Amazon for affiliate dollars, didn't they? This despite user protests and feedback to remove the feature or disable it by default.

At least in Windows, I know that if I search in Explorer, it will be a local file search, but if I search within a browser, it will be an internet file search. Tested to be true in Vista SP2 even with IE9 installed, if I do a file search in Explorer it doesn't get sent to Microsoft UNLESS I also allowed the customer improvement program.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because the desktops are Windows....

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Use Open Office...

I have. In fact, I've written books using OOO and MS Word, and I can say without hesitation that MS Word does not even compete.

And No, Google doesn't get a free advance copy of my next one, thanks.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have written descent sized projects on Open/LibreOffice(.org) and never had a problem with it.

Other than lack of a grammar checker?

(You wrote this, but I think you meant this.)

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[unixisc]

Has this been tried to date w/ PC-BSD?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

What? You're delusional.The forum hunt is the exception not the rule.

Drivers on Linux, well that is another matter altogether. Bob from Massachusetts if your reading this, I'm still waiting for that print driver you promised to update 18 months ago! Bob you there?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[tolkienfan]

Really?
All of those things were done before and better than by Microsoft, other than .Net. Net was done first in Java but done better by Microsoft, by many measures (except supported OSes).
I can't believe ANYONE thinks MS does SQL best. I don't even think MS thinks that.
IIS was a joke for years. Don't know what it's like now, but to suggest
no other option even has 1/2 of the features is ridiculous.
You haven't actually had any experience in any of the competitor's products, have you?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Until windows can update itself and not get stuck "preparing to update" Windows shouldn't live up to your "challenge" either. If I had a dollar for every box that I've had to fix that stopped working because windows update did something while the user wasn't even fucking there... I'd buy you a fucking clue.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're replying to a well known troll.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[lister king of smeg]

That would be Firefox lacking a grammar check not LibreOffice

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The things your are talking about, like " it's the server, terminal services, AD, DNS, DHCP, Exchange, SQL, IIS, .Net, Sharepoint and a whole hoard of other stuff that works, " it what are using like...10% of the M$ users. I'm pretty sure about this, so that's not a correct point of view.
It a nightmare to troubleshoot only if you are ignorant. (and obviously you are..I bet you haven't managed a MS SQL instance ever and lets say Postgresql or a Mysql to see where is the real PITA)

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

To beat any incumbent you need to offer better products. MS isn't just a Windows desktop, it's the server, terminal services, AD, DNS, DHCP, Exchange, SQL, IIS, .Net, Sharepoint and a whole hoard of other stuff that works, and works nicely together with very little effort.

Hello, I disagree with half you post and agree with the other half.

Disclaimer: I'm working as system/network admin in an almost pure Microsoft shop. Using all the services mentioned above. I also have extensive Linux server experience.

Microsoft surely has made it point and click easy to setup servers, I give them that. But to say that, and I quote you, "stuff that works, and works nicely together with very little effort" is I'm afraid not the reality of things.
While easy to initially set up it's a bitch to maintain. Each server needs to be micromanaged with patches and sometimes registry tweaking to find why one thing that worked last week but not this week is very very frustrating (this with the help of Microsoft mind you so this is not the ranting of an inexperienced admin). I've been in situations of six months old 2008 R2 servers with only one role installed to become so unstable even Microsoft lvl 3 personell have recommended wipe and reinstall after weeks of going through logs and diagnostic results.

DNS can also be problematic when you have plenty of DHCP served laptops in different geographical locations moving around. We had to switch to using Linux DNS servers to get around issues.

Server 2008 R2 also have serious ARP issues (the arp-cache links IP address with MAC, use "arp -a" in a terminal to have a peek) when a server has got many NICs, some of our servers has got 3 cards with 4 ports each.

Anyway, I didn't want to rant so I stop there for now. I just wanted to mention that, yes, Linux server is initially harder to set up but once done there is very little maintenance. A Windows server is very easy to set up with potentially (depends on your situation, not everyone has got the same experience I know) big maintenance hassles.

Sure you could cobble together a bit of this and a bit of that that sort does something similar, but it takes 10x as much effort, only has 1/2 as many features, and is a nightmare to support or troubleshoot when it breaks (or a new guy comes onboard and has to figure out your homebrew mess you created.

The point you make about having to troubleshoot homebrew Linux setups this is also something I've seen. I can not stress this enough to all the junior Linux admins out there: USE THE REPOSITORIES, they are there for a reason. Don't mix and match source codes from all over the web, don't install custom libraries to be able to install a certain version of a piece of software you think is essential. If you need to tweak a build feature and create a custom binary, at least pull the source from the repository and document what you do.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[maxwell demon]

You can also buy computers without Windows. Maybe not at the big stores, but there are options. Except for my very first self-bought computer, no computer I've ever bought came with Windows installed. And not a single one was self-assembled.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[maxwell demon]

X-Server is a crashy mess

The only times I've ever had X crash was due a faulty proprietary graphics driver (and honestly, there's no way an OS supplier can protect against that). My home PCs had no X crash for about a decade. My Laptop hasn't had an X crash ever.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[jones_supa]

Exactly that shows that you're not actually familiar with it. It's a bit more than typing some characters and changing fonts and marginals. A lots of open source enthusiasts recommend OpenOffice/LibreOffice but have tried it out just with some simple text and basic formatting. However, when you really go out there with it, write a bit more complex documents, embed line art and spreadsheets across applications, and exchange files with people who use MS Office... The cold fact is that screws up the formatting of the documents quite badly. It's just not worth all the hassle.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Patch86]

Dell has never tried to market Linux systems in my neck of the woods. Briefly, it was possible to find Ubuntu-loaded desktops in the bowels of their website, but you needed to know it was there and go looking for it. That lasted all of about one year in my market, before they disappeared again.

The only time in my life I've seen Linux machines on shelves being advertised (excluding Android) was during the initial Netbook craze; and that was notable for just how awful the Linux distros chosen really were. I mean honestly, they were truly awful. My EeePC came with Xandros on it, and it was damned near unusable. 10 minutes work to put an Ubuntu variant on it and it was one of the best machines I ever had. Linux isn't a magic bullet- if companies are going to market Linux machines and do a terrible job of it, they're going to get just as far as any company that markets terrible products anywhere.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

(You wrote descent, but I think you meant decent.)

FTFY. It's silly to put only "this" as links.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Opportunist]

Because you need elevated privileges in Windows for certain things and you could lock down things more tightly in Linux? Forget it, this isn't a technical problem.

It's one where managers cannot stand the idea that you, peasant, could do anything on their machine that they can't, no matter how little they know about it. They will DEMAND admin privs on their machines and they will also be the ones that you have to spend most of your time on because they tried to "adjust" something and of course it blew the whole ecosystem up. And of course it's NOT their fault, it's either yours or that stupid system.

Don't give in to the temptation to point out that systems are never stupid only their users are, it might get you fired.

This is also the reason why you'll never see Linux on office desktops unless the head honcho is in some way familiar with it. Or do you think your boss wants to deal with a system that he cannot use? Or, as the cynic in me would say, a system he can't FUBAR for you?

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Eirenarch]

May be but why should I care. I already own Office 2010 and the 100 EUR price for family pack is low enough that I'll just upgrade if 2010 does not work for me anymore. BTW does LibreOffice have live preview (you just point some formatting option from the menu and it changes the layout on the fly)? I love this feature.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Canonical != Linux

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[BitZtream]

Buy a prebuilt machine from someone like Dell. Problem solved. Plenty of those 'just work'

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...95%+ of the systems released in the last 5+ years? In case you didn't get the memo there is really only a handful of ODMs making parts on motherboards anymore, not that you'd know it by Linux, thanks to the "ZOMFG you have firmware 3.72343 and I want firmware 3.72346!" fiddly and picky as fuck nature of the driver situation. Pick ANY board on Newegg or Tiger, any one you want, and I'll take NOTHING but the Win 7, hell even the Vista install DVD and afterward it will have 100% working drivers without a single forum anything.

Now if you WANT the little extra crap, like Realtek HD Audio manager or AMD CCC? Then you'll have to OMG actually put the disc that came with the system in the drive but none of that is actually REQUIRED, again exact opposite on Linux because everything is tied to kernel which is just retarded.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[hairyfeet]

They can waste their mod points all they want but when you can't even use a tool for the job its intended to do then I'm sorry but your software just isn't suitable for purpose. And don't even get me started on running more than one at a time, you'd think OO.o/LO was designed for DOS the way it shits all over itself if you try to run Writer and another tool like Calc or Base at the same time.

But spend ANY real time in base and you'll find out its complete and total garbage, you try doing what is the most obvious and bog standard uses for a DB, like adding keys and making relationships and the whole thing will just shit all over itself and die hard, often taking its DB with it. Frankly anybody that needs Access or Excel wouldn't spend 5 minutes in either base or Calc before reaching for their CC to buy MS Office just to get away from the mess, its THAT bad. Frankly neither Base nor Calc should have been allowed into the release, its not even alpha quality.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[zanderz]

Wow, is this really Slashdot, or have I visited a different forum by mistake? I agree, this has been my limited experience with Linux, but I have made my living developing on Windows for years so I am biased. My impression is that the really significant part of Linux that has brought its success and widespread adoption is, less than any particular technological achievement or facility, the licensing scheme. It seems to allow the community to contribute useful work to it without it spinning too wildly out of control.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple years ago when I tried OO, it couldn't handle the simple adjustment to different formatting. Going from Excel to Spreadsheet sure worked fine. But when saving the file back to Excel format they couldn't be bothered to convert the formatting differences, and it fucked up. You cannot ignore such a basic thing as converting formatting when 90% of the people you're going to be sending a file to don't use the same product.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Linux has no commercial advertising, forks are created over unethical business practices, it first needs traction before it can obtain inertia, and users want to have the option of more OS's on one system even though most people are happy with the one that does everything they need it to. Although, to be clear, Windows 8 still runs perfectly normally on non-UEFI systems, so the platform lock-in is still more prevalent between Linux and Mac than between Linux and Windows, and even that's not all that insurmountable.

You'll have to face facts: Linux is the hipster of the OS world, Windows is the business man, and Mac is the artiste.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind me to tell that to a company near my city - they have 40,000 Linux desktops, and refuse to use Windows.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[multiplexo]

Yes, I've used both, and I've been using Linux for almost 20 years now and do you know what? It's a shitty desktop operating system. Linux on the desktop fucking sucks ass, Ubuntu is every bit as stupidly bloated as anything Microsoft has ever shipped, don't believe me? Well go install Ubuntu without a GUI and then add Gnome or KDE and watch as Ubuntu downloads several gigabytes of dependencies and loads your system up with crap. And what do you get? A piece of shit desktop that's basically just a ripoff of what Microsoft and Apple are doing, except that it's a piss poorly implemented ripoff. Then there's the fact that Linux has bugs and for the most part companies that sell Linux aren't any better at fixing those bugs than Microsoft or Apple. Canonical certainly isn't. I've been using Ubuntu for the last three years. Upstart is still a buggy, fucked up piece of shit, if you want services to start reliably on a Linux system, you end up having to edit the Upstart scripts in /etc/init, because otherwise Upstart is too fucking stupid to properly mount your NFS filesystems and you end up with orphaned inodes because Upstart doesn't properly unmount the root filesystem before the system is shut down. These are major bugs that were reported over two years ago and they still haven't been fixed. I keep hearing all of you fucking Linux fanbois bitching about how bad Microsoft is but you never bring stuff like this up, either because you're dishonest or you're just ignorant little shits who aren't actually using Linux in a production environment and but who think that because you installed it at home you're super duper 1337. Linux does a lot of things really well. Linux virtualization with libvirt/KVM is amazing. It's not as fully featured as VMware yet, but it's made huge leaps and bounds in the last three years. Companies such as Tivo and DataDomain have shown that Linux is a great operating system for dedicated devices. Companies such as Amazon run on Linux and have been for over a decade. But Linux on the desktop fucking sucks, it's nothing more than stupid, bloated, imitative shit.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[multiplexo]

*Windoze crashed constantly when I used it. The acronym BSOD is a household name, because of that "stability" on the MS desktop.

Have you ever considered that perhaps your system had bad hardware, or that perhaps you're just a fucking retard who can't get a Windows system to work?

*OSX is a Unix based OS. It is, by its very design, in the same league as Linux.

Wow, and here you were accusing someone else of inane babbling. OS X is not in the same league as Linux. OS/X is based upon BSD, which, under the hood, is completely different from Linux. OS/X has a great GUI. Linux GUIs are stupid, derivative and bloated. Apple spends lots of time making sure that all of the components of OS/X work with each other, they aren't perfect but they're a Hell of a lot better than any Linux distro out there. When Apple updates a major component of the system, such as the init manager they do it right. Migrating to launchd was transparent and painless, things just worked. Compare and contrast this to the fucked up and retarded way that the dickheads at Ubuntu grafted Upstart on to Debian. Upstart has been shipping with every Ubuntu distro since Lucid, and it's still buggy as Hell and even now, after almost three years there aren't any third party packages that support it. Linux does have better memory management than MacOS X, although that's not saying much, and if you've never had OOM killer fuck up something important then you obviously haven't run too many Linux systems, and it has better filesystems available (XFS) and it's had logical volume management since 2001, whereas Apple didn't introduce volume management until MacOS Lion (10.7).

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[davydagger]

"Hell look at how Linux as an "OS" is managed, you got fifty billion little fiefdoms, NONE of which are ruled by one grouped or even really has to talk to one another on a regular basi"

thats actually a good thing.

Look at gnome 3 and windows 8. Both were flagship products in the previous version (2, and 7 respectively), well used and liked interfaces.

Both did some really goofy, hated shit with the UI in the new version that caused their respective fanbois and user base to get rael mad.

Linux - forked gnome 2 into MATE, gnome 3 into cinamon, others took refuge with KDE and XFCE.

Windows - your kinda fucked, stuck on hoping microsoft will support 7 for as long as it supported windows XP, that said, you'll never be able to benefit from new things like ReFS, or kernel upgrades, or new technology, without giving up your UI. Mabey they'll get KDE working on windows 8, and you'll be saved by the linux community.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[davydagger]

lol @ sharepoint, and IIs

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[hairyfeet]

Thank you. And notice that NOT ONE will put their money where their mouth is and take the Hairyfeet Challenge? Know why? because I've already tried it with over half a dozen distros and the results are ALWAYS the same, the Vista machine has 100% working drivers and software, the Linux system will 8 times out of 10 end up in single user mode (or black screen of death as many call it) and the other 2 will have major subsystems like sound and wireless trashed beyond recovery.

At the end of the day they are trying to force a server OS into the home user space and its just not gonna work, home users aren't gonna put up with trolling forums or learning a shitload of bash commands or googling for fixes like a guy that gets paid 6 figures to deal with that shit. I know quite a few Linux admins, that admin large numbers of Linux servers for a living, know what they ALL use at home? Macbooks, some have a Windows partition for gaming but they ALL have Macbooks, why? Because they say they deal with enough of that fiddly bullshit at work, when they get home they just want to push the button and "it all just works" which Windows and OSX does, Linux don't, simple as that.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[davydagger]

yeah, first OS to have USB 3 support, built in drivers, easy networking config, uniform software installation and package management, uniform audio/video codecs (no more spyware laden .exe installers, or shit like DivX ;) ), everything is in gstreamer, the file managers actually work like you'd expect.

Windows is fucking clunky.

" But Linux on the desktop fucking sucks, it's nothing more than stupid, bloated, imitative shit."
Funny, thats what I think of Windows. even "heavyweight" desktops run faster with far less resource usage than windows. Gnome 3 and KDE 4 are on the level of windows XP with research usage.

I also still have pentium III boxes running modern kernels with LXDE, and modern versions of firefox, and pentiumn 4s with XFCE and firefox, that can watch youtube videos nicely.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[hairyfeet]

There is NO "hope" involved friend, the EOL dates are published and right there for anybody to see. I get support until Apr 2020 on that Win 7 Home I paid $50 for and the Win 7 pro I paid $100 for to use in the shop. Show me ANY Linux that will give me the same level of support at anywhere close to that price point, just 1. you can't do it because it don't exist. Either you get on the horribly broken upgrade bandwagon or you spend $1500+ just to get what I paid $50 for and THAT is why Linux is stuck at 1% and even with a bomb like Win 8 won't gain a single percentage point in share, people would rather shell out over $100 plus my costs to go to Win 7 rather than take your product for free because its simply not suitable for purpose, end of story.

And I'm still waiting on someone to take the Hairyfeet challenge, 2 years now and not a single 'challenge accepted" if that don't tell you that in their hearts they know I'm right then nothing will.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[hairyfish]

Depends what you mean by 'better'. If you have a bunch of apps that only run on MSSQL the it wins by default. You can argue it shouldn't be this way but in the corporatey back-office IT world, this is how it is.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll?
Fuck you ms fanboi mods.
I see you actually can't argue my point.

I have 15 mod points, but I don't go around modding down comments I disagree with.

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[davydagger]

". Either you get on the horribly broken upgrade bandwagon or you spend $1500+"

how I am going to spend $1500 for a new version of linux, when I just download the .iso, scratch that, update a few names in /etc/apt/sources.list and type apt-get dist-upgrade.

While I can be fairly certain my UI will stay the same, here is what I get when upgrade versions in linux:

new kernel with new features. Also linux does incremental upgrades, there are no disaster spelling .0 releases like microsoft that break everything and introduce massive security features leaving a sucky OS for a few years while they refine it.

New graphics server, new userland, all of which are incremental, and don't radically change things causing breakage.

Ever actually trying upgrading a windows machine. Major version like 98 - XP? You will break the machine

"people would rather shell out over $100 plus my costs to go to Win 7 rather than take your product for free because its simply not suitable for purpose, end of story."

People take windows 7 because its the OS that comes with the computer. Most people are simply incapable and scared to even learn how to re-install an existing OS on a computer, regardless of what it is, far less than change it.

Lets face facts, how many end users buy Windows 7 retail? 99% of sales are pre-installed on machines.

No one really wants windows, they use it because they more or less feel they have to. end of story.

Also
"And I'm still waiting on someone to take the Hairyfeet challenge,"

what the fuck is the hairyfeet challenge? If you mean "usable GNU/Linux desktop you can toss out windows for", I've been running linux since 2009 as my main OS, and love it.

I made mostly the same reservations as you, until I actually tried it on the desktop, and well, it works, it works well, it works better than windows.

It has a few hiccups, but less than windows does. As for why this isn't sold in stores? Its because the comapnies that make computers have a fetish for windows. Saying they are automaticly right for being capitalists is one horrible "Appeal to authority"
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/appeals/appeal-to-authority/

Re:Ignoring the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of the hundreds of computers I've had to image over multiple manufacturers the only things that I've had to install drivers for were laptops with non-standard extensions like accelerometers.

The drivers of which have been available on the manufacturers website.

And then you ask them about support.

[Anonymous Coward]

And they say...pay somebody else???

Re:And then you ask them about support.

[SteveFoerster]

This may not be flattering to Trisquel Linux, but it makes a real point and didn't deserve to be modded into oblivion.

Re:And then you ask them about support.

[sirlark]

Actually, if I go into my local Incredible Connection (a local computer retail chain in South Africa, more fondly called the the terrible infection, incredible decption etc) and buy a brand new laptop with windows and ask about support I get told pretty much exactly the same thing. If want windows support in this country, it costs me roughly $20 an hour extra, more if I want to phone microsofts support line directly because it's an international phone call for me. Sorry, support costs no matter the operating system. If your complaint is about being told to go somewhere else and pay for it, instead of the strore at which you bought it, then again I have to say there are a ton of retail stores that don't offer desktop support (only hardware repairs) too.

Stupid!

[notknown86]

Handing out an desktop operating system that only has a desktop user interface?

This is 20-damn-12, I'd expect a mimimum of at least one useless user interface!

Re:Stupid!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are plenty of useless user interfaces on Linux as well. You can always download GNOME3, Unity, KDE4, etc with a single command =)

Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[girlinatrainingbra]

I welcome these Gnus bearing free gifts! (valid to say "free gifts" in this context, with free as in software freedom. It's redundant to say "free gifts" with "free as in beer" as the word "gift" by itself implies "free as in beer"). [On Grimm, they mentioned that "gift" means "poison" in German, {'Geschenk' is the german word of the english word "gift"}so is it necessary to disavow that meaning? Free as is beer not as in poison?]

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's a well-established fact that alcohol is basically poison...

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[GNious]

"gift" in Danish (a germanic language) means poison ...
it also means "to be married" ...

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . and in Germany, Microsoft is handing out free copies of Windows 8 in "Schmuck" stores . . .

. . . but I have never figured out why people there would deposit their money in a place called Sparkasse . . .

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[ByteSlicer]

so is it necessary to disavow that meaning?

Obviously not, as it is a different language. You would never mix English and German and say "free Gift" (note the capitalization, also the plural is Gifte).

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[Anonymous Coward]

{'Geschenk' is the german word of the english word "gift"}

Since I have some time to spare and it might make for some nice trivia: Gift in German is indeed "poison", and Handy is a "cell phone", Box is usually a "loudspeaker". When Germans talk about a Brief they mean "letter", an Evergreen is an "oldie", and don't even get me started on what a Showmaster is. Fast means "almost", which turns Fast Food into "almost food" even though the expression is used in German ignoring the inherent pun (long vs. short a). Gymnasium is a "grammar school", Hose is "trousers", Mist is "dung" or "rubbish". Pickel is a "pimple" - yum! Rat means "advice", while rentabel is "profitable", our Rock is of course a "skirt", and if you have a Sense here, it is a "scythe". I might even wear a Smoking ("tuxedo"), unless I am a Tramper ("hitchhiker").

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[Anonymous Coward]

So is oxygen

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[Zontar The Mindless]

It's the same way in Swedish.

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[mellyra]

In Old High German "gift" meant "that which has been given", very similar but slightly more neutral to the English gift; in modern German you can still see traces of that in "Mitgift" = dowry.

The modern meaning goes back to the word being used as an euphemism for poison ("the deathly gift") and that meaning becoming dominant over time. As the meaning changed the word also changed its genus from female "die Gift" (still "die Mitgift") over male to the neuter ("das Gift").
"Die Gift" = donation/present was still used (albeit archaic) when "das Gift" = poison was already established.

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[Anonymous Coward]

And by extension, Norway. Dunno if Denmark and Sweden also have it as the word for married tho...

OvO hoot

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[gmhowell]

It's the same way in Swedish.

And English.

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, last i checked, GNU was an ~3 decades old incomplete project. Soulskill seems to have confused FSF with GNU. Those were FSF volunteers

Re:Gnews: Gnus bearing gifts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Incomplete? What are you talking about? It's been complete since 1992, when Linux was finished.

Good luck with that

[rolfwind]

Ubuntu is a tough enough sale and that's with some proprietary stuff added on. Don't even want to know if Trisquel can play DVDs out of the box or not.

Re:Good luck with that

[interval1066]

if you don't get media versions of a distro installing media players/codecs is hardly rocket science.

Re:Good luck with that

[The New Andy]

Ubuntu is a tough enough sale and that's with some proprietary stuff added on. Don't even want to know if Trisquel can play DVDs out of the box or not.

Well since Windows 8 can't play DVDs out of the box, I'm guessing they are going to be even on that one. But I think putting Windows 8 "out of the box" up against nearly any Linux distribution is going to look bad for Windows 8. Can Windows 8 read pdfs out of the box? Word documents? Excel spreadsheets?

Re:Good luck with that

[anagama]

Well, the question is how easy it is to get these things installed. For me, Linux is no issue, and I totally see how it is easier to type yum install [whatever] or apt-get install [whatever] -- but that makes most people balk.

Unfortunately, searching for programs is not always straightforward. Even experienced users get hung up. For example, I like the photo viewer formerly called GQview, but which is now named so badly the only way I can ever figure out what to type for the [whatever] part of the install command, is to google around for the new name, a name which violates spelling so bad it is practically impossible for me to keep it in my brain: geeqie

Seriously -- why?

Re:Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

Trisquel's not totally user friendly and while I wouldn't want to try and support it most of the issues are related to adobe flash. Fix that and there isn't much else that is going to be a problem for most.

I don't know if Trisquel will play DVDs out of the box although there is no ethical issue with it. Trisquel could ship with support for playing commercial DRM encumbered DVDs. Playing DVDs is last century. There isn't much demand for it among consumers these days. It's like the floppy drive now. It's dead.

Re:Good luck with that

[Nethemas the Great]

If you are the type that buys your PC at a brick-and-mortar it hardly matters...

Re:Good luck with that

[hendridm]

Most of the people I know are more interested in whether it plays Netflix over DVDs.

Re:Good luck with that

[knuthin]

...I totally see how it is easier to type yum install [whatever] or apt-get install [whatever]...

Or pacman -S whatever, or emerge whatever, or equo install whatever... or zypper install whatever (unless you are using an older version of Suse where you use rug install whatever), or slapt-get --install whatever.

AND

-- that makes most people balk.

Re:Good luck with that

[qubezz]

It can read PDFs - in a full-screen Metro-UI viewer that makes it completely impossible to do things like read documentation for a computer program while you also use that program. It also comes with a Metro picture viewer that has replaced the classic photo viewer, that goes full screen for the same effect - if you are designing a web page and have a browser and html editor open, boom they are gone and you are back to a metro-ui phone interface when you close your full-screen image. Windows 8 is a shitpile of shit.

Re:Good luck with that

[deimtee]

Thanks. I used to like GQview, but i thought it just went away. Installing now. :)

Re:Good luck with that

[Terminus32]

As much as I love the GNU/Linux philosophy, I would rather give someone Linux Mint (over Ubuntu) as it plays multimedia out of the box! I have converted many to Linux this way (sorry, GNU/Linux) and the other week installed Xubuntu on a work mate's old laptop over Windows XP and had it running like new again. How chuffed he was, he said it was like having a brand new laptop again!!!!!

Re:Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you dumb fucks could just use the GUI tools that come installed by default with most distributions. For fuck sake my stupid mom installs software on her Linux machine without using the command line. I swear only "techies" have trouble using Linux. My mom really is dumb and she was able to install one of those stupid mahjongg matching games all by her lonesome.

Re:Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 8 come with the standard desktop photo viewer. Just associate it with image files in Set Default Programs and you're good. I agree the PDF viewer is not useful for the purpose you described, but it is a default PDF viewer, which was never included before.

Re:Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Trisquel can play DVD's out of the box, something that Windows 8 can't http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57547497-285/how-to-watch-dvds-in-windows-8/

Re:Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

It can play DVDs just fine. Not encrypted DVDs, because some governments (like the U.S.) have censored free software that can play encrypted DVDs, but Ubuntu can't play DVDs out-of-the-box either.

Re:Good luck with that

[lokedhs]

Most people have no access to Netflix anyway since it's a US-only thing.

Trisquel?

[assertation]

I never heard of that distro before?

What is it like?

Zero proprietary drivers and media files?

GNOME desktop?

PITA to install?

Curious

Thanks

Steve

Re:Trisquel?

[MightyYar]

It's another Debian-based distribution.

Re:Trisquel?

[mutube]

Debian based,

Less whitespace

Than

Your

Comment

Re:Trisquel?

[lister king of smeg]

My first thought when i saw the distro they choose to handout was "failure".
          It won't install on the new windows 8 desktop because of the secure boot without messing with the efi module at (are the computers sold by MS at the MS store required to have the secure boot disabled?) it won't play any of their media unless for some odd reason they have been saving it all in .ogg . It won't contain the necessary drivers. No flash(no hulu, or flash games or about 90% of streamed media) no Silverlight(by extension no netflix) no Adobe reader(so no overdrive ebooks from the local library) no idevice support. It is running a DE that most of the Linux community hates or at least treats with mild disdain, and people who have no experience with non-windows environment will look and act just as alien as DE formerly know as metro. For the things that are missing they will have to add repos and keys mess with the command line and grok the forums to find instruction on how to fix the distro in the end all it will do is reinforce the perception of Linux as a nerdgasim that is a pain to use and incompatible with all of their software. Even the software that they all ready use has been re-branded (over purely silly philosophical reasons see icecat the gnu fork of iceweisle the debian fork of firefox) so as to still seem alien at worst and like a knock off at best. the best thing the cold have done for free software is handout (kde, xfce, gnome fallback, (or unity/gnome 3for the adventurous) )ubuntu and linux mint discs and discs loaded with open source windows software. All this will do is make us look like a bunch of (G)NUts
Are you sure that Balmers privet army of ninjas hasn't planted a chip is Stalmens head and turned him into a saboteur?

Re:Trisquel?

[knuthin]

No flash(no hulu, or flash games or about 90% of streamed media) no Silverlight(by extension no netflix) no Adobe reader(so no overdrive ebooks from the local library) no idevice support.

Should be an unofficial repo somewhere for Flash. I could install Silverlight from Moonlight, but fuck it. I don't even use Netflix. Adobe Reader? Are you kidding me? Ever heard of xpdf and Okular? I am not sure but Amarok/Clementine might have sync capabilities, if you need that. (Clementine works fine with my Android).

Re:Trisquel?

[qubezz]

You have clearly confused a "computer" with a "corporate media consumption box". Keep buying and soon that's all you'll be able to buy.

Re:Trisquel?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Should be an unofficial repo somewhere...

Stop. Right. There.

Seriously, are you high? This is Oma and Opa, and Onkel Jakob who runs a bratwurst stand on Unter den Linden, that we're talking about here.

I'm sure lister appreciates the assistance in making his point.

Re:Trisquel?

[unixisc]

It's an Ubuntu based distro, but w/ what the FSF calls 'Libre-Linux' - Linux w/ all the binary blobs w/o source code removed. One can read more about it here

Actually, this is one of the ways that the FSF, having failed to deliver on HURD for all practical purposes, and having been rebuffed in their attempts to get Linux to go GPL3, are trying to get a Linux that is more Stallman and less Torvalds. Honestly, they should just do the HURD project more seriously, instead of trying to pass off other people's projects as their own, as they are trying here by rebranding their Linux kernel as 'Libre-Linux'. Of course, in userland, having moved all GNU software to GPL3, they've made Linux less usable for companies that don't want to touch GPL3 software due to the legal issues it invokes.

The other thing - if one looks @ the GNU page of endorsed distros, none of the mainstream distros - be it Debian, Red Hat, CentOS, Ubuntu, Slackware, Gentoo, et al are endorsed. Instead, one just sees a line-up of no-name distros that one's never heard of, and some not even offered in English at all - which are endorsed. Trisquel is the most well known of these. The others include gNewSense (RMS' own pet distro that he uses on his Lemote Yeedong), blag, dyne:bolic, Musix and a few others.

Anybody who feels like using these should instead get Arch HURD, which would probably be GPL3, and be more aligned w/ the FSF's campaign.

Re:Trisquel?

[unixisc]

Not Unity. All the 'libre-Linux' distros have GNOME 3 instead, but in fallback mode, since the drivers that use GPU video acceleration are binary blobs, which is a non-starter for any 'libre-Linux'. So they go w/ GNOME 3 in fallback mode, but given that GNOME 3.6 is supposed to lose fallback mode, I wonder whether they will still be going w/ that. Maybe if GNOME 3.6 offers GPU based video acceleration w/ source code, they may be fine w/ it, but I don't know that that's the case.

Of course, GNOME 3 is about as unusable as Metro or Unity, so short answer to your question would be yes. But hey, you have the source code, so as per the genii @ the FSF, you should be able to change it to whatever you want, right? Or pay a programmer to do it for ya.

Re:Trisquel?

[lister king of smeg]

If you pay attention I specified adobe reader for a reason - no overdrive (overdrive being very common common library ebook lending drm system)as that only runs with adobe. As for flash you either have the old out of date Linux plug-in for Firefox or the pepper api in chrome but not iirc chromium. Neither Chrome nor the flash plugin would be in a gnu approved OS, and average Joe has no clue what a repo is much less find a trisquel specific one as it is aimed at free as in Stallmans definition of free thus it user base would not want it to "contaminate" their system. You say you don't use netflix but lots and lots of people do and it won't work with moonlight as MS won't license the client side DRM and moonlight hasn't seen an update in a long time(also every time Firefox updates it kicks it for being out of date but you can reinstall it and it works fine, or rather as well as it ever did which wasn't that well to begin with.

Re:Trisquel?

[lister king of smeg]

I haven't but that is how most people treat/use it.

Re:Trisquel?

[Anonymous Coward]

>What is it like?
Easy, beautiful and modern. And free.

>Zero proprietary drivers and media files?
Yea. Most proprietary media formats can be opened though.

>GNOME desktop?
By default, all other desktops available in the repositories.

>PITA to install?
Very easy to install. And quick.

>Curious
Try it, https://trisquel.info/

>Thanks
Welcome.

Re:Trisquel?

[assertation]

I agree, getting HURD finished would solve many of the FSF problems. Their operating system could be just "GNU" and the FSF would look much better.

Of course, a kernel is a lot of work?

Is there another reason why HURD was never finished?

Torvalds made the first Linux kernels himself.

Is there a lack of interest among the people with the knowledge to build HURD?

Re:Trisquel?

[Anonymous Coward]

And even if you're not. Who cares for fsking around with unofficial repos such as the notorious medibuntu breaking systems left and right. Or is that better now?

Re:Trisquel?

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to be making silly excuses for distro's purist state, and ignoring the fact that the non-free technologies listed above are rather deeply entrenched in the computing habits of normal consumers.

You can't expect people to go around manually installing a repository for flash support

People do use netflix, infact it's quite popular, the fact that you personally do not, does not cause the issue to go away

I'm just guessing here, but the "overdrive ebooks from the local library" he mentioned probably come with DRM that requires adobe's reader and will scupper attempts to read them in open source pdf viewers that might ship with the distro

It was a silly and counterproductive move by a bunch of hardline freesofters, what is needed is the more moderate approach involving liveCDs of userfriendly distros, and disks or usb sticks containing Windows FOSS collections like the opencd, much like teams at Software Freedom Day events use.

Re:Trisquel?

[Anonymous Coward]

The HURD is a microkernel which moves the problem that needs to be solved from how to write a program to how to safely and efficiently pass messages around components that know "nothing" about each other.

A kernel being a necessary evil makes it unacceptable for it to take more than the bare minimum of resources.

Re:Trisquel?

[Speare]

You have clearly confused a "computer" with a "corporate media consumption box". Keep buying and soon that's all you'll be able to buy.

You seem to have ceded the entire media world, consumption and production, to the realm of commercial computing. Keep reminiscing in your sftp/emacs/netscape/troff/latex glory days of old, while the rest of the pragmatic computing world breaks new ground together: some commercial, and some fully open.

Re:Trisquel?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an Ubuntu-based distro with none proprietary software. GNOME 2 desktop (at least for now) and really easy to install.

Re:Trisquel?

[Zontar The Mindless]

And even if you're not. Who cares for fsking around with unofficial repos such as the notorious medibuntu breaking systems left and right. Or is that better now?

No idea, I don't do 'buntu. Tried Ubuntu and Kubuntu back in the day, saw no reason to change to a distro that assumes I have no idea what I'm doing or even what I want to do.

OpenSUSE on the desktop here, CentOS or FreeBSD for servers.

(And I do use unofficial repos... But I don't try to cook sausages under the Brandenburger Tor.)

Re:Trisquel?

[Anonymous Coward]

GPL3 is not legally problematic for the vast majority of things. GPLv3 is fine. And "Libre-Linux" doesn't sound anything like passing off other's projects as their own. It's absolutely clear that it is just a modified version of the Linux kernel. How is this in any way an issue about credit?

As to the GNU endorsed distros, it is indeed unfortunate that none of the mainstream distros are listed, but what's your point? That they should endorse something just because it is mainstream? They chose to endorse based on certain criteria, and "mainstream" isn't one of the criteria, although it isn't a problem for them either. The fact that no mainstream distro meets their criteria isn't necessarily an indication of a problem with the critieria versus a problem with the mainstream distros. Maybe they are unrealistic idealists, but so what? If you don't care at all about ideals, go run Windows.
In my view, the way to get mainstream distros on the GNU list is to make Trisquel mainstream. If I were the one deciding things, though, I'd give qualified endorsements of currently mainstream distros.

Anyway your quip "more Stallman and less Torvalds" boils down to an accusation of egotism and is not a fair criticism in this case and completely ignores whether there are legitimate principles involved here.

world un-domination

[Anonymous Coward]

first step: hand out copies of trisquel to normal human beings

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Latent Heat]

Yeah, yeah, "Linux" is just the kernel, but if it weren't for Mr. Torvald's kernel, the GNU project would be still spinning its wheels.

To the average "dude or dudette on the street", it is just plain "Linux", and this "GNU/Linux" label just oozes righteous political correctness.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

if it weren't for Mr. Torvald's kernel, the GNU project would be still spinning its wheels.

True, but where would Linux be without GNU?
The GNU project created all the other parts of an operating system, and then Linus created a kernel.
He built it using GNU, and he built it to use GNU.
Linux didn't replace GNU; it is de facto part of GNU.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

If it wasn't for Linux doing a great job, we might actually have a [well] working HURD kernel.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

What is there against the GNU handing out "GNU/Linux" for free?

The GNU is about an idea, an ideal even. And they promote their idea by giving it away for free, completely in accordance with what they believe in and what they stand for.

Did you ever receive a C&D letter from GNU for calling "Linux" just "Linux", or what?

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[berarma]

No, it's technical correctness. Android uses Linux like GNU/Linux uses Linux, none of them is Linux. Your views are political, this is a technical issue. Like saying the browser is the internet, no way, and it's not political correctness, it's (technical) correctness.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[VortexCortex]

if it weren't for Mr. Torvald's kernel, the GNU project would be still spinning its wheels.

Creating a kernel is easy. How long did it take Linus? Certainly not DECADES. Were it not for GNU, Linus's kernel wouldn't have done ANYTHING, and we'd STILL be waiting for him to get a decent compiler and userland tool suit running. Think about it. "I'm going to install the Linux Kernel!" "Why, it just sits there not doing a damned thing, doesn't even have a file system." Seriously. People make Monolithic Kernels all the damn time, it's not even hard. I wrote such a kernel and boot loader in x86 ASM in about two weeks worth of evenings for my toy OS. Linus' was just the first one to come along, and that's good enough for FLOSS. It sucks that GNU gets dropped from the name given how much MORE work was put into it than the dead simple kernel Linus wrote, and it really sucks that he didn't use the "at your option any future version" text in the license, -- I mean, he made it impossible to change the license why? It's not like commercial folks couldn't stay with GPL2 "at their option". I don't know man, you sound like you're putting Linus on a much higher pedestal than you need to. Great guy and all, but come on, what he did was and still is a TINY fraction of the work.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't build Linux to use GNU, I built Linux to download pr0n from the local BBS.

-- Linus Torvalds

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

creating a kernel might be easy but creating a brand isnt.
As a brand GNU is terrible, its poor visually, aurally and is just an all around crap collection of letters, even more so is the meaning behind the letters, which would get laughed out of just about any boardroom in industry you pick.

Linux is a brand AND a kernel, sure the project might not of worked without GNUs input, but it wouldnt work without all the rest of what makes a distro either.

tldr: GNU/ is a crap brand name, lose it.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[isorox]

if it weren't for Mr. Torvald's kernel, the GNU project would be still spinning its wheels.

True, but where would Linux be without GNU?
The GNU project created all the other parts of an operating system, and then Linus created a kernel.
He built it using GNU, and he built it to use GNU.
Linux didn't replace GNU; it is de facto part of GNU.

A desktop os needs a browser (Firefox), text editor (vim), office suite (OpenOffice), PDF reader (evince), window manager (kde), etc

Gcc and Libc are very important, but to the end user gnu is a tiny part of the system.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

"Don't believe everything you read on the internet" -- Abraham Lincoln

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[vux984]

Creating a kernel is easy.

Well in that case...

it really sucks that he didn't use the "at your option any future version" text in the license, -- I mean, he made it impossible to change the license why

Fortunately this can be resolved by simply writing a new kernel.

Which is easy.

And best of all you can make it compatible with the linux kernel, and then just substitute it in with GPLv2 or later in the license.

You said it could be ready in 2 weeks? Can't wait.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[byolinux]

> A desktop os needs a browser (Firefox), text editor (vim), office suite (OpenOffice), PDF reader (evince), window manager (kde), etc

Browser: GNU Icecat, text editor: emacs, office suite: GNOME Office, PDF reader: GNU PDF, window manager: GNOME.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh really? If creating a kernel is sooo damned easy, then why didn't anyone, you know, ACTUALLY DO IT? Right now, Linux can and does exist without any GNU involved - ever heard of, you know, Android? On the other hand non-Linux GNU (Hurd) is an utter joke. And that's ignoring the fact that most of its drivers are stolen from Linux.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[lister king of smeg]

He could of used assorted other lesser known utils or maybe used the ones from BSD after they beat AT&T. As it stands now there are a number of Linux sans gnu OS's out their, Android being the largest inferno a interesting set of programs that i have contemplated playing with i like a number of concepts plan9 had. Also as to your saying "Linux is part of defacto part of GNU" even Stallman would and has said your full of sh!t on that one. And don't go say "well call it gnu/linux then" as there are a whole shit ton of there major projects tools included on my system to. Should I call it GNU/Apache/BSD/X11/Mate/KDE/XFCE/Oracle/Mozilla/Linux as I have packages from all of them installed? Where do you draw the line? I would say call it Linux because that is what they all run on top of.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU together with Linux forms the majority of a system in a standard GNU+Linux distribution. The fact that users do not directly use GNU software (assuming they don't use Gnome) doesn't change the fact that the system (probably) won't work without a replacement for the GNU system.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[mewyn]

Sure, making a skeleton kernel based on existing documents isn't too bad. Booting x86 is a pain in the ass, but not hard for an experienced programmer, but making a working system that has everything it needs is quite a different challenge. If it's so easy to make a kernel, how come the GNU project still can't produce a working kernel? HURD has been spinning it's wheels pretending to be something since 1990 (1986 if you count the previous attempt at making a kernel). If it were easy, why don't we have many more compatible kernels out there? The syscall interface for Linux is out there, one can make a fully binary compatible kernel if they want.

Besides, if GNU didn't exist, Linus would likely have used the MINIX userspace and then switched to the BSD one when he outgrew it. Sure, there are some nice things about GNU, but BSD would have done just as well.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

mod parent up. GNU represents only a tiny bit of code in a daily *normal* users workload.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Linux, folks.

GNU is just some small subset of software components in Linux. Something like EMACS, for example, that still has its usability issues requiring CTRL-this and META-that to get things done, so I still prefer vanilla vi to whatever newer version of EMACS there may be.

It's always technically incorrect to write GNU/Linux because the "true" GNU Linux kernel is the forever in development HURD. Those who write GNU/Linux are effectively just outing themselves as FSF/Stallman desciples, like GNU is some sort of faith-based org.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[MBGMorden]

Doubt it. If Linux wasn't doing such a great job FreeBSD would be a lot more popular.

It was always kind of an HD-DVD/Bluray situation there anyways. In the early days both were just about as good as the other. The market seemed to rally behind Linux instead, it got most of the development work, and so it took off (and today is legitimately the better of the two technically), but if the same momentum had been behind FreeBSD it would be just as good.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[unixisc]

It's not just the name. Most GNU software just sucks ass. Just go to the GNU software page, and look at all the stuff that's there. Most of them are just too basic to be useful. As it is, the 'libre' philosophy means that there usually ain't the drivers to enable most of the stuff, making it a non-starter. Much of it is made usable by projects such as Debian, which RMS has needlessly vilified.

As a brand name, Linux has a mixed reputation - partly due to GNU, and partly due to the extremely fragmented nature of this kernel.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[unixisc]

And he wouldn't even have had to deviate, since Tanenbaum endorsed the BSD license over GPL, and used that w/ Minix 3.0 and beyond

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[VortexCortex]

You jest, but that's exactly what many folks have done, investigate the prior link. Tellingly: You don't need to make your new kernel compatible with "the linux kernel" to get driver support, nope, you just implement ELF and use GNU gcc, and bootstrap a host of other GNU code. Hey, but don't take my word for it smart guy, click that link in my post. Wow, already done. Even sooner than your 2 week deadline. Do I get a fucking cookie now? Seriously, The Pedestal Is Too Tall.

I find your comment pretty damn silly considering the link I provided you with many examples of OSs that have done exactly what you ask, as if it's hard to do or hasn't been done... Maybe that's why it's modded funny? Surely it couldn't be ignorance of the mods who thought your failed attempt at sarcasm actually had teeth?

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[lister king of smeg]

He could HAVE used.

Bloody hell, you wouldn't write "I of used" instead of "I have used", would you?

On second thought... Just please don't answer that.

grow up grammar nazi

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[VortexCortex]

Oh really? If creating a kernel is sooo damned easy, then why didn't anyone, you know, ACTUALLY DO IT? Right now, Linux can and does exist without any GNU involved - ever heard of, you know, Android?

Yep! You replace the GNU userland with Android userland because the Linux kernel needs a userland. Like I said, if it hadn't utilized the GNU userland it wouldn't have taken off, no one would have used it, it would still be in development. Android didn't exist and BSD was in a legal mire, besides BSD has a nice kernel already, why would anyone have adopted a rough around the edges new kernel (Linux)? Man, it's like I'm explaining logic to a child... Whelp, my code's compiling and the coffee's brewing so here goes:

Why didn't anyone else invent the Light Bulb? Oh, except they did. Edison came along and figured out which gas (argon) to put in the bulb, others were doing this work as well. Yet most folks wrongly attribute Edison with the invention of the incandescent bulb, despite vacuum incandescent bulbs being patented for years prior. For me the reason why I didn't create a kernel first was because I didn't have free time, I was only 12 at the time and only learning how to create TSR (terminate stay resident) programs for DOS while going to school and doing chores, being a kid -- I hadn't found out about Unix or GNU at that time. I did have an inkling to make an OS since I used DR DOS, and MS DOS, and several BASIC ROM systems, and thought that was something I wanted to try, and now I have, and I'm trying new and different things, like using separate call and data stacks, arranging code and data with gaps in the virtual memory to catch overruns, you know, stuff that you can only do in a nimble small project, that if they work out might just get adopted by bigger projects, like BSD or Linux. Regardless of whether I use Linux, I can still think it sucks that the license is unchangeable / non upgradeable. It's not just Linus's code in there, there's lots of contributors, I'm not the only one that share's this sentiment, but not even Linus can change the license now because there's been too many contributors under the license without the "at your option" clause to track them all down -- Being fine with that is fine, but I say it sucks, and suspect he might have wanted to allow it to be changed at some point, from some debates over the matter before it was seen as outright impossible -- Perhaps Linus isn't immune to a bit of revisionism WRT his firm stance?

Let's think back, OK, so Linus was 21 when he started Linux and in university, he'd been there for some time, got some classes out of the way. He sort of dilly dallied around a bit, so he did have a lot more time at Helsinki than most: He Spent ~9 years, he says, in Universtiy, was even a teacher's assistant for a while... So, he's been exposed to Unix and GNU, and can't afford Unix for his PC, but wants it for running projects on his own hardware, and realizes there's only the kernel left to build with the GNU project and has lots of time to tinker, so he takes the opportunity and makes it. From the very beginning there were collaborators to help him and spread the word, so GNU/Linux takes off because it's the first PC Unix clone, at the right place in the right time. Simple, eh? That enough why?

Let's face it, there's not a whole ton of interesting difference between one monolithic kernel and the next, so there's no real reason to switch to a new monolithic kernel. I'm just saying, it could have been anybody, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to keep the filaments from burning out -- You can either vacuum out the air or add a non-flamable gass -- Linus made the simplest kernel design there is and we're still running with it... The reason we're not using HURD / HIRD is that it's got a problem in its design: Since any fs module can provide a different mapping for "..", instead of having an overarching path manager, it means some things can mess with the paths. It's also a lot mor

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[vux984]

I find your comment pretty damn silly considering the link I provided you with many examples of OSs that have done exactly what you ask,

All I saw was a LONG a list of half baked projects, toys, and experiments.

"single user multitasking"
"the next version will support DLL files!"
"status alpha"
"status early development"
"FreeDOS is ideal for anyone who wants to bundle a version of DOS"
"This is basically a dead project."

Ooh this one looks ready to go, we'll just run it right off the whiteboard!

" It will be written in assembly language and C. "

Wait, here's a promising one:

"Ity is currently under active development but far from finished."

I guess what? only 10 days to go instead of 14?

Maybe this one:

Logram is a small operating system fully 64-bit. It uses its own file system (FSL), and recognizes the keyboard.

That's sounding promising. Keyboard support is definitely a plus; hmm... uh oh... from the logram website:

"Logram est un projet de distribution GNU/Linux"

No, I don't know how good your french is, but take my word for it, it says essentially:

"The Logram project is a GNU/Linux distribution"

So close to being what we wanted... looking for a drop in kernel replacement for Linux and well... they're just using linux. I guess its "too close".

Now, no disrepect to ANY of the above projects or any other project on that list.

But I don't really see anything that even remotely comes close to taking GNU/Linux and giving you a drop in replacement for the Linux half.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Patch86]

Ironically, the phrase has actually taken on new relevance in recent years. Android is Linux, but not GNU/Linux. Arguably it's Java/Linux. People often say things like "Android is based on Linux, but it isn't REAL Linux"- what they actually mean is it's Linux, but not GNU/Linux. We pedants can embrace this new language for whole new layers of clarity.

Not that that makes any difference to "the dude on the street" of course, so I guess your point still stands.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Patch86]

If creating a kernel is so easy, should we be expecting a production-ready GNU-branded kernel any year now?

Yes I realise the difference between monolithic kernels and the Hurd microkernel, but the important point still stands- if Linux or some other well implemented kernel hadn't come along, GNU would still be a decades-old curiosity project. Attention would have been far more likely to switch to BSD than GNU, in the absence of a working kernel, and the tools we know and love would be nothing.

Also, if creating a high-quality kernel were so easy, why is it that Google has used Linux as the (GNU-free) basis of Android? Surely they would have just whipped one up themselves, with all the benefits of full ownership and preferential licensing that that would bring? Presumably they evaluated Linux as being the best option they could choose, for a project that has nothing to do with GNU- that's high praise.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone has to start somewhere:

"PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(."

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux needed GNU as much as GNU needed Linux; Linus:

It would be "interesting" even to port it to another compiler (though
why anybody would want to use anything other than gcc is a mystery).

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

>Most of them are just too basic to be useful.

Wow.

Let's look through the list a bit...

>autoconf autogen automake libtool m4 make

Now what could that possibly be? It's only used by almost everyone to build their programs (if anything, they are too advanced).

> bash

Fully-featured shell used by most everyone that uses shells.

>clisp guile guile-dbi guile-gnome guile-gtk guile-ncurses guile-rpc mit-scheme

Most feature complete programming languages on the planet.

>diffutils findutils coreutils grep less patch sed

Basic UNIX utilities leaps and bounds better than the stuff other UNIX systems have.

>emacs emacs-muse

Most well-known programmer's editor in the world.

>bfd binutils bison gcc gdb ddd

Now what could that be? The most advanced compiler collection in the world.

>ghostscript

Printing... yeah, it's so crappy I didn't even know it was there in all the thousands of pages it printed without problem. /s

>glib

One of the best libraries to make C suck less (if that's possible).

>gtk+ gnome

One of the major free software desktop environments (not as successful as MS Windows, true).

>gnumeric

Spreadsheet program with bells and whistles.

>octave

great symbolic mathematics program.

> ocrad

Optical Character Recognition

I could go on all day.

I've never seen such misplaced criticism as your post exhibited.

Not sure whether you are complaining that they are doing actual computer science and their programs do the *actual* character recognition instead of interfacing to a binary blob on some hardware to do it or what.

As for them needing to work on better names, I agree. Also, they should work on better advertising (seriously, half of the people on the planet don't even know they did these programs which are used all the time; advertise!).

As I see it, GNU are not integrators. They are building the actual stuff. But then to have integrators say "oh the actual stuff? Yeah that's not important" is weird.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

"Creating a kernel is easy."
hows that hurd thing going for gnu?

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[vux984]

Everyone has to start somewhere:

Of course.

But lets not pretend that it would only take a couple weeks to replace the modern linux kernel with something remotely equivalent.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.minix3.org/

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[multiplexo]

So you hacked together something based upon the Tanenbaum book. Big fucking deal. Just because you created a kernel and boot loader in x86 ASM in two weeks doesn't mean that it was worth a shit. If creating a kernel is so fucking easy then why didn't the GNU project have one back in the late 1980s? Well there are two reasons, one because creating a real kernel for an OS that's going to run in the real world is fairly difficult, regardless of whether or not it's a "micro" kernel or a "monolithic" one, and of course because the GNU project spent three years dicking around and waiting for a license for the Mach Microkernel to become available. But eventually that issue was resolved and as soon as it was GNU wrote a kernel and shipped it right? No, GNU has spent 20 years fucking around with the Hurd, and even after twenty years it's still a piece of shit that nobody uses. So on the one hand you have Linus Torvalds who was able to put together a working monolithic kernel using the GNU tools in a fairly short period of time. On the other hand you have the GNU project, who developed the GNU tools (and you'd think that this would give them an advantage) and who have had over 20 years to develop a kernel and the best that they can do is the Hurd. Oh, and yeah, people develop monolithic kernels all the time because monolithic kernels work and have decent performance. Mach was a great idea and a cool project but Mach kernels never delivered on their initial promise of improved performance and most operating systems that claimed to use Mach based kernels (OSF/1) were actually using hybrid kernels that combined features from Mach with a more traditional monolithic kernel design.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[unixisc]

>Most of them are just too basic to be useful.

Wow.

Let's look through the list a bit...

>autoconf autogen automake libtool m4 make

Now what could that possibly be? It's only used by almost everyone to build their programs (if anything, they are too advanced).

Making the case of everyone who says that GNU is stuff by programmers, of programmers and for programmers. How many end users do you expect to build their own programs? How many of us own MS Visual Studio?

> bash

Fully-featured shell used by most everyone that uses shells.

Again, if someone is working in one of the DEs - KDE, LXDE, XCFE, Razor-qt, Cinnamon, or even GNU's GNOME, why would one need this? Except for the fact that a lot of Linux programs don't handle Linux very well, forcing one to CLI, where that becomes useful, or is all that's there.

>clisp guile guile-dbi guile-gnome guile-gtk guile-ncurses guile-rpc mit-scheme

Most feature complete programming languages on the planet.

Again, see my first point above. How many Linux users out there know lisp, guile, scheme and so on?

>diffutils findutils coreutils grep less patch sed

Basic UNIX utilities leaps and bounds better than the stuff other UNIX systems have.

Same as above. Aside from programmers, who exactly uses grep, sed, diff and all that?

>emacs emacs-muse

Most well-known programmer's editor in the world.

This one, I agree. Actually, it's less of an editor, and more of a user environment, which, to its credit, makes full use of all those myriad features X11 has.

>bfd binutils bison gcc gdb ddd

Now what could that be? The most advanced compiler collection in the world.

Programmers, programmers, programmers....

>ghostscript

Printing... yeah, it's so crappy I didn't even know it was there in all the thousands of pages it printed without problem. /s

This is GNU's answer to postscript. I'll grant you that it's good.

>glib

One of the best libraries to make C suck less (if that's possible).

>gtk+ gnome

One of the major free software desktop environments (not as successful as MS Windows, true).

Again, more programmer centric stuff

>gnumeric

Spreadsheet program with bells and whistles.

>octave

great symbolic mathematics program.

Okay, one more good program in the GNU collection aimed @ the general public. Like GNU Cash. Octave too sounds good, somewhat like Matlab, although I'm of the opinion that too many mathematical languages just makes it more confusing to people who just need one tool to provide what's needed, and work.

> ocrad

Optical Character Recognition

Okay. Bad name choice - sounds too similar to ORCAD, which is a PCB layout software

I could go on all day.

I've never seen such misplaced criticism as your post exhibited.

Not sure whether you are complaining that they are doing actual computer science and their programs do the *actual* character recognition instead of interfacing to a binary blob on some hardware to do it or what.

As for them needing to work on better names, I agree. Also, they should work on better advertising (seriously, half of the people on the planet don't even know they did these programs which are used all the time; advertise!).

As I see it, GNU are not integrators. They are building the actual stuff. But then to have integrators say "oh the actual stuff? Yeah that's not important" is weird.

Most of the above, as I've pointed out, are programmer centric, rather than user centric. I'm not complaining about them not being integrators - I'm co

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[unixisc]

Actually, if they were to fork it and put it under GPL3, it would be a good basis for HURD. All the microkernels they've tried out have gone nowhere, so they might as well try this one. In fact, Minix, like HURD, is Unix, and the only reason for not using it is the license - nothing that a fork can't solve.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[unixisc]

One word - the license. The same reason that Apple & FBSD, for starters, have switched from gcc to LLVM/Clang

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

The GNU Hurd is usable right now, you know. They don't recommend it because Linux is much more heavily developed, and they don't work on it much at this point because Linux is free and works just fine; there are far more important free software projects. So if it weren't for Linux, GNU would probably work just fine at this point, and people would be actually calling it GNU.

Re:Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, GNU made up something like 12% of the entirety of most GNU/Linux distros. Not much, but consider that Linux is only around 1-2%. Oops. If "GNU" is an improper name because it doesn't make up a majority of the OS, then "Linux" definitely is an improper name.

Emacs isn't one of the major things. Major things are, much like Linux, things you never see. Things like tar, cp, rm, and a bunch of other stuff that I don't even know about. The fact is that Linux is barely functional without GNU.

Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously... you fucking lost. A long time ago. Nobody fucking cares about you. FSF, Stallman, whoever the fuck else... just go away and stop making yourselves look like douchebags.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

The free software movement can't lose. Companies come and go, but ideas are forever. Ideas can't go bankrupt, ideas can't die. As the sibling states, free software is already being used everywhere. Big, expensive computers that can't afford down time use free software. Small, cheap computers that are built for one simple task use free software. People only think of desktops, but, while it's certainly important, it's is not the only type of machine that runs software.

And just who the fuck do you think you are to tell what Stallman and the other members of the FSF should do with their time? If you don't care about freedom and don't want the free stuff you are free to walk away. Millions do care about freedom, free software, the FSF and Stallman's ideas. Very few people can claim to have affected, for the better, the lives of so many.

Re:Pathetic

[unixisc]

You are conflating 'free software' and 'open source' - something that RMS and the FSF would frown on. 'Free software' does not allow companies to make money, since it bans them from restricting re-distribution. Open source, by contrast, can be incorporated in code that disallows re-distribution, depending on the license that is used. Open Source software is used when companies want to have a control on their future in a way they can't if their software provider going away or going belly up would result in them being in a soup. But it doesn't force them to allow their customers to freely re-distribute their software, in a manner the FSF insists on.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong when you say that "'Free software' does not allow companies to make money, since it bans them from restricting re-distribution.".

The only thing a business has to figure out in order to make money with free software is a good business model that works while not depending on restricting the users. There are lots of examples of companies doing well this way. Have you ever heard of RedHat?

Re:Pathetic

[unixisc]

Yeah, and RedHat doesn't (and can't) stop anyone from redistributing its OS. Since CentOS already does it for them, and since non-commercial users use Fedora, they don't have to bother too much about that.

But let's say a software company wrote a piece of software, and wanted to be the only supplier of that software so that they could make money off the entire market that was there. Let's say they priced it @ $25. In their license, or in their CD, they include the sources as well, so that customers can tweak it if they can or wish. Now, let's say that in their license, they wrote this, but banned customers from redistributing them, instead asking that any potential customer be sent directly to them for a sale.

This is what the FSF crowd would be against, since it violates 'Freedom 2' - the help your neighbor deal. The open source definition too requires that redistribution be free, but a model like the above is more likely to get endorsed by the OSI, since the sources are always accompanying the binaries. Open source, as far as the dictionary definition of the term where freedom to redistribute is not covered, is a great development philosophy & mechanism. Free software, on the other hand, is just a mechanism for proliferating software throughout the market w/o the software creators being compensated for all the software that gets duplicated. As a result, there is very little quality 'free software' out there, since after a while, maintenance of this software or development of new versions cost money, and there are few ways of making it under a 'free software' license. Which is why companies stay away from it like the plague.

Re:Pathetic

[multiplexo]

Yeah, and RedHat doesn't (and can't) stop anyone from redistributing its OS. Since CentOS already does it for them, and since non-commercial users use Fedora, they don't have to bother too much about that.

A few years ago I worked for a company that was running Oracle on RedHat. We reached a point where it was time to buy new servers and instead of buying RedHat licenses we bought licenses for Oracle Enterprise Linux, which is basically RedHat Linux except someone downloaded the RedHat source and ran

find . -type f -exec sed -i -e "s/Red Hat/Oracle/g"

Man the RedHat rep was pissed off when I told him that we were switching to OEL from RedHat. I got a big lecture on how Oracle was just piggy-backing on all of RedHat's hard work. It was rather hilarious.

Re:Pathetic

[multiplexo]

Yes, have you ever heard of Oracle Enterprise Linux? Oracle went out and took RedHat Linux, added OCFS2 and other Oracle enhancements and started selling OEL. Oh, and if you were already licensing Oracle for your database OEL was compelling because it meant that you had one less throat to choke if you were trying to solve a problem with the system and because it was cheaper to add support for OEL to your Oracle license than it was to purchase a support contract from RedHat. Needless to say RedHat was not happy about this but there wasn't anything they could do about it except suck it up and watch as they lost customers to Oracle. Now Oracle has a brilliant business model here. Develop a proprietary product and then let someone else develop an operating system that your product runs on and then you copy their OS and use it to drive sales for your product.

Re:Pathetic

[unixisc]

Seems to me that RedHat was right. What exactly did Oracle, as a company, do that added any value to RHEL? Even in their current distro, do they offer, independently of RHEL, btrfs as a file system option on OEL? The Oracle software ran previously on RHEL, and now, on the re-branded OEL. It's not like they enhanced it w/ Solaris code, or enhanced Solaris w/ RHEL, or anything of that sort. Heck, they didn't even offer OEL on their own Sun SPARCservers, even though the RHEL ports on the UltraSPARC already existed. They just did everything that Microsoft was previously accused of - leverage their clout in one market - applications - to muscle in their clout in another - Linux distros. As one may have read of accounts here where people switched to OEL just so that Oracle couldn't point fingers @ Red Hat if their apps didn't work w/ RHEL.

Red Hat, along w/ Caldera at the time, and Debian later, was one of the pioneer companies as far as Linux development went. They managed to figure out a model by which they could make money - freely offer the source, but sell the binaries, and really make money on the service. Which was good and worked well until CentOS came along. And until Oracle just took their offering and rebranded it as its own.

That's the reason a lot of vendors avoid 'free software' like the plague. They know that the 'community' is a bunch of freeloaders who don't believe in putting their money where their mouth is, but just mooching of the hard work of a few. Only problem - there is only so much of free work that one is willing to do before one has to actually make money of their work, or what RMS sneeringly refers to as '"earning a living"'. It's less of a problem w/ BSD or other open source s/w, where a vendor has the options of combining BSDL licensed s/w w/ any other s/w. Had RHEL based their business on FBSD or OBSD, they'd not have had to helplessly watch the likes of Oracle or CentOS simply smooch off their work, but could have made their own innovations to their OS and picked whatever they thought was worth open-sourcing, vs whatever needed to be locked in.

Re:Pathetic

[unixisc]

Like in my above response to multiplexo, this is why Red Hat would have done better to have gone w/ a BSD, rather than a Linux. That way, Oracle couldn't have swindled them. And your post proves the point - let's make Oracle's proprietary applications GPL2 (not even 3) and then see how far they go. The only reason they are successful is that their software is proprietary, and they've leveraged that advantage w/ Linux, where they are legally free to steal RHEL and pass it off as their own.

All in all, proves the point that one can't be successful w/ GPL software - and Red Hat is not exactly a complete exception to this rule. TiVo is - and look at how the FSF does their hit jobs on them. Android would be next, whenever RMS gets time to work on GPL4.

Based on Ubuntu

[Osgeld]

Which is based on Debian, which is already "free"

round and round we go

Re:Based on Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuh uh! Debian allows you install software that Richard Stalin disagrees with. You're more free by being denied this ability!

Re:Based on Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh that makes me angry! Picture you're me, trying to get Debian 6 running on an old PC. I could get to my data on the network, maybe, but nooooo...Debian decided that the firmware for my e100 card was not free enough, despite the fact that it was free enough to be distributed with the Linux kernel sources. So I had to get the real (not Debian) Linux kernel source and how to figure out how to get it to my fresh Debian install without network access. There's a bit of that nonsense in Debian, wasting my time in one case out of two. And for what? The Debian folks are making a decent effort to please RMS and those who think like him, all for GNU to officially snub Debian from their approved distributions list, because it's too easy to use Debian to get non-free software.

So when I read about how GNU people go out to Microsoft kids events during the holidays to distribute a relatively unknown version of Linux because their fervor has their sensibilities slightly out of whack, it all looks so GNU to me.

BTW, I like RMS, and I think of him wandering around, yelling like Sam Breakstone, "It's not FREE ENOUGH!...Still not FREE ENOUGH!" But he really needs to tell the GNU project to show Debian the slightest bit of mercy. Besides, mall shoppers would be extremely impressed if people were handing out 100-disc spools of Debian to passers-by. "You can get THIS MUCH free software! You can install one disc, or you can install all of them. It's up to you!"

Re:Based on Ubuntu

[byolinux]

"free enough to be distributed with the Linux kernel sources"

the firmware files are typically under a license that prohibits modification and even redistribution.

Re:Based on Ubuntu

[unixisc]

You're not getting it. Debian provides both software that has source code w/ it, and separately, it offers software that doesn't include its source code to those who do not insist on that. In other words, Debian does the cleanest thing possible - it offers its users completely liberated software (I prefer using this to the term 'free' for obvious reasons), and since that may not be adequate for everyone, particularly the non techno-savvy, they offer the un-liberated software separately. The problem that RMS has w/ them is that they let their users know that that un-liberated software exists in the first place, rather than just clam up and pretend that it doesn't, so that everyone is forced to use only software that has been so liberated. That's the reason most of the better known distros are not endorsed by GNU - they don't have a clear policy banning the provision of un-liberated software.

The GP was being funny, but he's completely right - as per Stallman's perverted definition, users of GNU's endorsed distros are better off by being denied software that they can't modify. Never mind that most of them ain't programmers and wouldn't have a clue about how to modify it, given the sources.

Let them be.

[Anonymous Coward]

I say why not. If they would like to give out Trisquel GNU/Linux CD then I say go for it. I'm both a linux and a windows fan so I wouldn't really care. Linux is great for some people and bad fro some. I don't think they will really get many supported out of this. Fist off, Most people done want or know how to load an OS. This is the main reason computers come pre-installed with them. The people that will be shopping at the windows store will not be tech savy.most like, so not sure there going to use it. Also most will want a computer that can game, use microsoft office (because that is what they are use to), run without glitches and such. Linux can in many way not fufill that. Most games are not able to run on linux (WINE can't keep up with them), Open office while great can't do alot of the functions they may need to do that office 2010 can do, and While i love linux i have had to track down many problems with driver.
I would say if they really want to make an impact and not just get into the news, sitting outside of a computer parts store like Microcenter, frys, or the local computer shop would give better results. That is how I learned about linux not because i was went to windows store or Apple store or DELL or HP Store were i would have already been looking for a pre packaged computer.

bet most people threw the disks away

[Anonymous Coward]

who would trust some random person handing out free software anyway? Even if they were interested, they would promptly ditch it once they realize an all free software distro runs like shit without the proprietary drivers needed to run their computer well

Re:bet most people threw the disks away

[bhlowe]

Good point. Reminds me of all those "free" AOL CD-ROMs I used to get.

Re:bet most people threw the disks away

[unixisc]

Those AOL CD-ROMs at least worked - it's just that one didn't need a gazillion of those once one had made use of one to install on his computer. With most Linux CDs that I've tried, at least in the 90s, they'd never recognize the network card, and so I was out of luck, except for playing a few games. That's probably better today, but there are still issues about recovery & restoration of software.

tris-what?

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously....what the hell?

why do closed-source get all the cool names?

Re:tris-what?

[ChunderDownunder]

It's Spanish for the 3-legged symbol that appears, among other places, on the flag of the Isle of Man.

See, the spaniards of Galicia claim celtic heritage.

Still not cool enough for you?

Re:tris-what?

[Molt]

No, it's still an awful name. There is a history of computer products using non-English words as names, such as Ubuntu, Adobe, and Amiga, but the words themselves have to sound good or catchy, and ideally have a strong definition behind it which those who look into it will identify with. 'Trisquel' is a weak-sounding word and given the definition I don't see why people outside of the Isle of Man and Galacia would be interested enough to remember it.

As for me the first time I heard it I assumed it was something to do with SQL, possibly doing something unholy with three different SQL backends.

Re:tris-what?

[ChunderDownunder]

Well, it's a distro that started out at Vigo University which, obviously, saw a symbolism with the triskele (a perfectly cromulent English word). So Trisquel has nuance for the non-English people, for whom Galician localisation was a factor in forking debian.

And regional symbolism is important for a people that identify as neither Spanish nor Portuguese but the Celts that predated the Romans. And the Celtic theme isn't just in the distro's icon but the codenames for each release. Gone are "raring", "warty", "sid", "woody" etc, replaced by 'dwyn' and 'awen'.

So no denying it's a celtic-themed debian derivative whose name has a resonance to the people that founded it.

Now whether that's an appropriate name as the Poster-Child distro to push the FSF agenda on the other side of the world in Massachusetts, is a separate issue. Nevertheless a pagan celtic symbol has been co-opted to represent extremist advocacy!

Re:tris-what?

[Bambi Dee]

I think it sounds lovely. Much better than any closed source OS I can think of.

What?

[Mr_Silver]

Why Trisquel?

Why not Linux Mint or Ubuntu or Debian or Redhat or one other distribution that is not only widely known, but has appropriate support, forums and users who can help?

I'm all for showing people what alternatives to Windows are out there, but surely it would be better to give them something else that - well - a decent number of people actually use?

Re:What?

[Microlith]

Because the FSF doesn't support projects that integrate (or allow the integration of) proprietary bits and pieces. This includes firmwares that need to be loaded on a device prior to operation, so there's a fair amount of hardware with completely open drivers that don't work on Trisquel because they omitted the firmware.

Re:What?

[Desler]

Because it's the FSF and they don't endorse those distros.

Re:What?

[Mr_Silver]

Because the FSF doesn't support projects that integrate (or allow the integration of) proprietary bits and pieces. This includes firmwares that need to be loaded on a device prior to operation, so there's a fair amount of hardware with completely open drivers that don't work on Trisquel because they omitted the firmware.

Thanks for the explanation. Whilst it makes sense from an idealistic point of view, I can't help feeling that it's one of those great ideas that could ultimately do more bad than good - especially if the hardware someone uses doesn't work and the advice they find is "don't use that distribution, use this instead".

I suppose it comes down to goals: would the FSF rather someone stick with Windows if they are unable to use a FSF approved Linux distribution? Or is the goal to get people starting to move away from OSX and Windows, even if the first step is to what they consider an "imperfect" Linux distribution?

Re:What?

[Microlith]

It's silly because they would cease to complain about the firmware if it were stored on the device. Lack of this baseline capability (and simple things like the ability to play mp3/m4a) is what ensures I won't use it.

would the FSF rather someone stick with Windows if they are unable to use a FSF approved Linux distribution

The FSF is on the far end of things, anti-copyright, anti-patent and taking a "closed source software is immoral stance." They lead the charge, though, and we're way, way past the halfway point towards the walled garden, wholly proprietary camps of Microsoft and Apple so I won't begrudge them of their position.

Or is the goal to get people starting to move away from OSX and Windows, even if the first step is to what they consider an "imperfect" Linux distribution?

Awareness itself is often valuable on its own, particularly to consumers who don't know about anything but Windows or Apple.

Re:What?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Because the FSF doesn't support projects that integrate (or allow the integration of) proprietary bits and pieces.

So basically they're doing their level best to make sure the average person considers Linux a non-functioning piece of crap.

Re:What?

[Molt]

Unfortunately it does seem to be the case nowadays. The FSF have done some great things in the past but this is just stupid, giving people copies of a distro which won't act at they expect, and when they search for help they won't find it as it's a marginal distro. They'll just think they've given Linux a try and throw it away, whereas at least with something like Ubuntu or Debian they'd be more able to find forums where they'd be more likely to get given help and less likely to have ideology preached at them for wanting to sin by watching some funny cat videos in Flash, or talk to their relatives abroad using Skype. I really hope Microsoft are paying them a lot for demonstrating that breaking a perfectly good desktop OS to make it work like a tablet OS isn't the stupidest thing you can do.

Oh, and remember the FSF ideology is likely to be completely alien to them- these are people who were in the Microsoft store.

I can see now why my mother told me never to take operating systems from men dressed as animals.

Re:What?

[Microlith]

No, they're practicing what they preach. If you don't like it, then perhaps promoting the Linux distro you prefer would be a good idea. The average person isn't even aware that Linux exists.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trisquel plays mp3s and probably m4a as well.

Re:What?

[crutchy]

because they don't want disgruntled wintards infecting the real linux forums with their bullshit... so they set up this "trisquel" honeypot to keep the "why isn't linux more like windows" questions to the usual dull roar instead of total pandemonium

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same is true for the hardware manufacturers who don't publish free drivers or decent specifications.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose it comes down to goals: would the FSF rather someone stick with Windows if they are unable to use a FSF approved Linux distribution?

You make a common mistake -- you're looking at this through the same lens as most corporatists. This may come as a surprise, but freedom is paramount at the FSF, not adoption rates or market share; sometimes at the expense of function (as you've aptly pointed out).

Why is this so hard to understand? Some people value their principles more than convenience, and these projects were made for and by them.

Re:What?

[nukenerd]

Trisquel is a very bad choice for trying to wean people off Windows. It is FSF stuff in the strictest sense - no proprietory stuff whatever. Although I have never tried it myself, and don't want to, I quote from a review of it in Linux Format magazine's Christmas issue (LXF 165) :-

" [It uses] ABrouser. This is a respin of Firefox to make it more free, and it has been redirected to an add-ons store with only free software. You may find your hardware does not work quite as well ... but what's a bit of computing efficiency compared to the price of freedom?"

I think that "your hardware does not work quite as well" most likely an understatement, and the bit about "compared to the price of freedom" (knowing LXF magazine's sense of humour) is thinly veiled sarcasm. I once tried an open video driver instead of a proprietory one in the disto that I use and it was truly awful. In other words, Trisquel is going to leave any Windows user who tries it frustrated - and confirmed in their prejudice that Linux is an inferior OS. They should be handing out Mepis or Mint, not Trisquel, and leave the political agenda until later.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

>would the FSF rather someone stick with Windows if they are unable to use a FSF approved Linux distribution?

The FSF is the main bulwark and does not compromise its ideals (they'd lose credibility).

>Or is the goal to get people starting to move away from OSX and Windows, even if the first step is to what they consider an "imperfect" Linux distribution?

The goal is to get people to see that they don't have to accept a new peerage class that will decide what, where, how and when they are allowed to do something (in some places - like the US - by changing laws, no less). If that starts by letting people see what already doesn't work without approval by some peerage, that's better than nothing.

The ends do not justify the means. The journey is all there is. The goal will not be reached within our lifetime, if ever. So what you are saying is that they should just harm them all their life in order to keep them from harm in the future when they are dead. Yeah. No.

Re:What?

[unixisc]

Or since they were in a Windows store, they should have been handing out Zorin, which is aimed at Windows users.

Re:What?

[shutdown -p now]

All well and good, but it makes no sense when you go out and preach to people who have no idea what this "free software" thing is all about, and maybe want to find out. Now, thanks to FSF guys, they'll know that it's something called "GNU/Linux" that basically doesn't work on the hardware that they have, failing in various mysterious ways. Do you think that, ultimately, this is going to improve people's perception of Free Software, or hinder its adoption?

What Stallman and his ilk should recognize is that most people just don't care about their purity; all they want is stuff that works and is cheap. You can get them hooked on cheap, and you can promote other advantages of FOSS from there, but always minding that a system that's partly but not fully FOSS is still one step in the direction they want the user to go, and is vastly preferable to a system with no FOSS (or the one that user is unaware about). You want to have any effect at all? Hand out LibreOffice for Windows and OS X CDs instead, and explain why it's free.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

The term free in this context is a reference to freedom, not price. Using the term “user-freedom-respecting software” would be the longer way of saying the same thing. “Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them. Users want software that works, that is true, and when the user has freedom, they will have the right and responsibility to make it happen.

Proprietary software is a social and political problem and free software is the ethical solution to this. When users don't control the program, the program controls the users. The developer controls the program, and through it controls the users. This nonfree or “proprietary” program is therefore an instrument of unjust power.

Most people don't care about freedom because most people don't understand the consequences of exchanging their freedom. Basically, the consequence means the users do not live as sovereign individuals but as helpless and divided people subject to the goodwill of the software owner. This is the fact for everyone who accepts any proprietary software. I consistently see this attitude of helplessness whenever I read about what Apple do with their software. Some people may understand accept the subjugation that occurs but the vast majority have no idea they have accepted it.

Re:What?

[shutdown -p now]

I know perfectly well what Free Software means. But if you want to teach other people, you have to walk them slowly towards your goal. Inviting them to use an "all Free" distro which most likely won't work for them is a good way to make sure that "Free" is firmly associated with "broken" in their minds. You might as well be offering them GNU/Hurd.

The problem is that FSF sees all things as binary: either the system is 100% Free, from firmware to kernel to apps, or it's not. Realistically, today, most people cannot run a 100% Free system, especially not on their existing hardware. But they can run some Free apps.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it would be hypocritical. Trisquel is something they actually support.

Trisquel's support is just fine, by the way. It has a very active forum that I'm a part of, and people there are more than willing to help. For its category (completely free GNU/Linux distributions), it has a large userbase as well, and for good reason: it is a fantastic distro.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why you think nonfree software is needed to play MP3 files. Have you ever even used a completely free distro? Trisquel (using Totem, VLC Exaile, etc) works just fine with all kinds of media files, including MPEG (MP3, MP4, etc), and I've never had a problem. The problem with MPEG (the versions without DRM, at least) is it's patent-encumbered, but this mostly affects those who distribute the files.

Re:What?

[unixisc]

Mr Stallman, high time you stopped bastardizing the use of the word 'free'.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trisquel isn't a "non-functioning piece of crap", and you would know this if you had actually used it before.

The only issue Trisquel has is incompatibility with a very small number of video cards (new Nvidia cards that haven't been reverse-engineered yet, and a small number of AMD ATI cards) and a larger number of wireless cards (particularly those that have both WiFi and Bluetooth). 3D also doesn't work with any AMD ATI cards because AMD only partially cooperates with free software, but Trisquel works fine without 3D.

So basically, the only important feature that Trisquel normally has trouble with is WiFi. This is a serious problem in a laptop, sure, but easily solved on a desktop computer by using another method of connection (e.g. ethernet). If you really need the WiFi, such as for a laptop which requires nonfree software for it, you can install the nonfree software if you want, or better, you can just buy the wireless adapter sold by libre.thinkpenguin.com, which is only slightly larger than a USB thumb drive.

Free beer

[Anonymous Coward]

I would rather free beer though

What about OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they also doing this demonstration at events at Apple Stores? If they were really serious about their message, and not just trying for a pissing contest with Microsoft, you would likely hear more about their efforts against Apple. My bet is that they have confused themselves in their fight against paid software, and made it a fight against Microsoft.

Re:What about OSX?

[BitZtream]

No, Apple would have these assholes tazered and be done with it ;)

What about Apple?

[Ariake Shikima]

Are they also doing this demonstration at events at Apple Stores? If they were really serious about their message, and not just trying for a pissing contest with Microsoft, you would likely hear more about their efforts against Apple. My bet is that they have confused themselves in their fight against paid software, and made it a fight against Microsoft.

Re:What about Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they also doing this demonstration at events at Apple Stores?

No, because this sort of nonsense smacks of religious idiocy. In such a battle of zealotry, the FSF would be utterly destroyed by the Church of Jobs.

(Posted from my MacBook Air. Hail Apple! All Hail Saint Jobs!)

Re:What about Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you missed these events.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/FSF-Targets-Apple-Stores-in-AntiDRM-Protests/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/01/protestors-ipad-is-nothing-more-than-a-golden-calf-of-drm/
http://www.fsf.org/news/ibad_launch

Re:What about Apple?

[byolinux]

They've done dozens of events at Apple Stores, including the huge Apple store about 100 metres from this Microsoft store.

Re:What about Apple?

[Ariake Shikima]

Really. Interesting that I haven't heard about those events on /. but do when it's against Microsoft.

Re:What about Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because articles are chosen by their likelihood of being a good springboard for trolling.

*BSD wouldn't be dying, for one

[tepples]

Were it not for GNU, Linux's userland would be based on that of BSD. USL v. BSDi finished about a year after Linux came out.

Re:*BSD wouldn't be dying, for one

[Microlith]

Were it not for the lawsuit, rather. GNU was available and had a shell, compiler, and editor ready to go with no legal questions. GNU couldn't have blocked something that wasn't available at the time.

Re:Window 8 is Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions of Android phones using Gnu tools and Gnu/linux, Apple used GTK to build OSX{v10} GUI, BSD used GNU to build their OS, Sun Microsystems used BSD to build SunOS, Microsoft used BSD code to build NTv3, Next computer inc., used BSD to build Next OS which apple computer purchased, Microsoft used BSD to build Xenix, and IBM used BSD to build AIX. RMS planted the seed which became the root of a productivity boom. RMS is a GOD and his contributions to computer science far exceed those of Bill Gates. So it is you who are pathetic for not realizing.

Buy a new PC

[tepples]

would the FSF rather someone stick with Windows if they are unable to use a FSF approved Linux distribution?

I assume FSF would want users to buy a new PC whose hardware supports a GNU/Linux distribution that does not contain or advertise proprietary software.

Re:Buy a new PC

[Anonymous Coward]

What the FSF wants is for hardware manufacturers to publish quality hardware specifications. When they do that, the software community can burden the responsibility of writing drivers.

Trisquel GNU/Linux is not "free software".

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have been handing out a desktop-oriented BSD distro instead.

Trisquel may avoid proprietary software / firmware (though to a lesser extent than OpenBSD), but it is still marred by support for intellectual property monopolies in the form of restrictive copyleft licensing. In fact, copyleft depends on copyright MUCH MORE than most businesses in the software industry do today, as many transition to explicit contracts like SaaS, hardware bundling, support contracts, etc. GPL is morally identical to SOPA, but with a different set of demagogues seeking to gain power from it.

--libman

Re:Trisquel GNU/Linux is not "free software".

[Anonymous Coward]

You're clearly a troll.

Re:Trisquel GNU/Linux is not "free software".

[Anonymous Coward]

And you've just acted like closed-minded fool who cannot respond to factual criticism constructively.

--libman

Such a waste

[FyberOptic]

They're getting desperate. This is like a church handing out pamphlets outside of a movie theater or arcade. It'll all go in the garbage, and end up being a waste of time and resources.

Re:Such a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like a church handing out pamphlets

... said the person, from the pews.

Did you know that Microsoft pays people to mention Bing on television shows? Remember the forced 'bing verbing' fiasco? When a corporate whore does it, it's just 'in their nature' -- anyone else, and they're proselytizing.

Re:Such a waste

[FyberOptic]

And yet Bing still isn't the most popular search engine, despite how many times Hawaii Five-0 tries to demonstrate it to me.

Just because the people promoting a product think it's better doesn't mean it actually is.

Bah!

[Molt]

"Linux? Oh, you mean those idiots dressed as animals in the mall?"

Yes, this'll go well. If you're going to do something memorable make sure it's not something stupid.

homepage could be less informative to newbys

[Anonymous Coward]

but it would be hard
they have made no effort whatsoever to make it clear what they are and why I should try it
I mean, does it really hurt to condescend to lower yourself and explain what it is your are doing and why anyone should care ??

Re:homepage could be less informative to newbys

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm... https://trisquel.info/en/faq

Re:I couldn't disagree with you more

[Billly Gates]

I happen to be modded down -1 often here touting that Windows is simply a better option for a regular pc for average Joe and I agree with you and AMD/ATI comments. ... however when it comes to a server. Ah uh. Windows SUCKS.

With Linux I may not have exchange. But I can run SMTP trace. Sure, I may not have AD. But I have ethereal and a libcap and a million other apis, tools, for a shitload of languages.

Apache beats IIS hands down for configuration and options. You do not have to sit and wait on the MS upgrade trendmill thinking man maybe the next version of IIS will do X. Apache and the Unix culture itself encourages hackability and modules. As a result you can choose. Hell do not like Apache? Use NGIX. With Windows you are stuck with what MS wants. Well I guess what Oracle wants too if you hate .NET and invested in Java back when it was cool and owned by SUN.

Users do not care about hackability yes, but real IT pros who need to configure servers for clouds and backend stuff DO. With that said I have to say Windows Server 2012 is a big improvement. It is nice it is VM friendly and when you fire it up it does not use 100% of all the ram in your VM. I can have 10 VMs in 16 gigs of ram of Linux becuase I give them 2048 each and they use only what they need and dynamically scale on VMWare. But WIndows ... nope it has to use 100% of the ram even if all you do is run notepad in previous releases. Linux has been ahead for well over half a decade.

With that said its hackiness and the lack of an API is why it does not belong on a desktop. But the average user does not care or know what Exchange or SQL server is. It is what PHB IT managers want thinking it will somewhow save money to be locked into a proprietary stack like IE 6 which they can't leave 10 years later.

Nice choice of target

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Microsoft is the problem, right?
Certainly not Apple, the one who goes out of their way to be evil.
Let's all hate Microsoft because they're the traditional BBEG

HURD, heard, herd, hard

[unixisc]

This! If creating a kernel is so easy, how come HURD still ain't complete? They tried several microkernels - Mach 3, L4, Coyotos and Viengoos, and all were disastrous. One thing they didn't try was Minix 3.0 - while that is under a BSD license, the FSF guys could have legally forked it under a GPL3 license, added whatever drivers they needed to the user space as well as all the HURD servers, and built themselves a complete kernel that they could have called HURD. Once that was done, they could have put on top of it anything - Emacs, GNOME 3.6, GNUSTEP, whatever...

Re:Window 8 is Pathetic

[unixisc]

Since when did RMS have anything to do w/ BSD, beside persuading them to make the OS free - which they did, while declining to make it copyleft as well?

And you are trolling in other ways as well. Microsoft built NT from scratch, using the guys who did VMS (Dave Cutler) and Mach 3.0 (Rick Rashid). That was in no way BSD, much less GNU. NEXTSTEP was built using Objective-C, which Apple too used in making Darwin and OS-X. Xenix came & went - never remained a long term part of Microsoft - it was more successful in SCO.

RMS' only software contributions were in Emacs and GCC, but he had long ceased to be involved in software development, and has solely focused on public trolling. Others, like Torvalds, Reynolds, Perens, de Raadt et al have had far more to contribute to software than he has.

Re:I couldn't disagree with you more

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing an SMTP trace and using ethereal (aka WireShark) are dead easy on Windows. Not sure where you're arguing from, here. Unless things have changed in the ~5 years since I last ran a Linux system daily, libpcap is just the PCAP driver equivalent of....the Windows PCAP driver.

I will certainly give you that Apache is more configurable than IIS. So...run Apache on Windows, if you like. Best of both worlds.

Dogma just gets in the way of productivity.

A free what?

[LostMyBeaver]

"...Trisquel GNU/Linux operating system, a free software replacement for Windows 8"

Ok, driver support (yes, still an issue), motion sensor support, touch support, documentation, etc... I use Linux all the time... from my Windows machine. I admit, Linux has come a long way, but when companies like Dell are still using 6-8 months to get a single computer out of the door (which was already in production), it just means we're still not there. Even when they managed to ship, it still wasn't 100%.

Biggest problem with Linux these days is still that there's too many damn options. For example, there's gobs and gobs of graphing calculator programs for Linux, nearly all of them still need to be finished and most of them don't have any developers anymore.

Why does it always have to be one or the other?

Clearly your confused

[tuppe666]

They're getting desperate. This is like a church handing out pamphlets outside of a movie theater or arcade. It'll all go in the garbage, and end up being a waste of time and resources.

That is called advertising, and its just how things work. Would you feel better if it was a multi-million dollar smear campaign, like Microsoft is buying [and openly I might add], or backroom deals done with politicians and companies. This is how Google make money. In fact this sort of advertising is how advertising should be to "inform" not "brainwash". Now you could argue its poor use of time and money compared to some alternative, but as time is freely given, and CD's are pretty disposable your answer would probably end .,,on the internet [Sigh]. The fact that your example involves a religion...instead of coca cola speaks of your own bigotry, ironically your church example is pretty poor, as Religions tend to do well from this type of advertising.

Re:Clearly your confused

[FyberOptic]

No, the church example was a perfect comparison. Usually people a) already tithe to a specific church, b) don't go to the kind of church you're promoting, or c) don't go to church at all. So a pamphlet for a church rarely brings in any new people. It's the same with operating systems. More so, actually. If you use OSX or Windows, you're not going to just suddenly start using Linux because some guy handed you a CD. For all they know, the CD contains malware, even. People like what they're used to, and most don't have the technical confidence to even begin installing a completely new OS. These are the kinds of people who take their computers to Best Buy when something goes wrong. They're the last people who need to be running Linux to begin with.

Besides, what if Microsoft went and handed out free DVDs of a Starter Edition of Windows at a GNU event? Or at an Apple store? The people belonging to those respective OS groups would be pissed. Not to mention, they're not exactly going to convert many people to begin with. So GNU shouldn't do something that would put them into a hypocritical position if their competition did the same thing to them.

MINT

[assertation]

I know all of the reasons why this wouldn't happen, but if they wanted to win people away from Microsoft they would have had better luck passing out copies of MINT with the KDE

Re:I couldn't disagree with you more

[ilicas]

Ironically winpcap is actually more feature-rich than the original libpcap.

I don't get the judgmentalism

[Noginbump]

What the hell has happened to /.? There was once a time when a story like this would have generated excitement on this site. ANYONE promoting FOSS, regardless of how "weird" their methods, would have gotten positive points.

"Why didn't they use x distro?"
"Why would they wear an animal suit? That's weird."

I say good for these guys. They are offering a free/free alternative to a OS with a horrible UI (among other problems). I hope they do the same at the Apple store. Sorry they weren't "cool" enough.

Re:I don't get the judgmentalism

[BitZtream]

Because these guys are just behaving like lunatic assholes.

Using a shitty distro that beyond any doubt will not work right on the hardware they are trying to force it on.

Standing in front of a business taking advantage of business resources to spew their fanatical views on people who clearly have no interest in it.

What events like this do is turn people off to Linux. Do you like solicitors? No one does. My like RMS throwing a temper tantrum and eating his own toe jam, it just goes to make 'them' look like morons. They could be saying something useful (they aren't) and they would still get ignored because they look like raving nutters.

Re:I don't get the judgmentalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Metro sucks but as has been pointed out: click Desktop or use Windows key + D and the desktop appears. Multitasking is the only other issue.

Re:I don't get the judgmentalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you say the UI is horrible? It's just GNOME 3 Fallback with a custom default panel that looks more like Windows. Does everything have to be GNOME Shell or Unity to not be "horrible" now?

Google should close down

[tuppe666]

No, the church example was a perfect comparison. Usually people...

The original poster was a bigot trying to associate one [artificial] negative cogitation with onto another. IT was simply offensive.

I'd address your other points, but clearly you live in some kind of fantasy where large corporations play nice, and where Advertising isn't an effective method. I don't live in the same world as you.

Re:Google should close down

[Anonymous Coward]

You live in a world where Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons have an effective marketing campaign.

Re:Google should close down

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually people as easily offended as you are, by something to which I didn't even take as offensive to begin with, deserve to be offended.

Re:Window 8 is Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple used GTK to build OSX{v10} GUI

No they did not.

What about Apple? iOS is bundled

[mschaffer]

Macs can run Trisequel as well. Apple bundles iOS with the Mac and you cannot buy a Mac without paying for iOS.
I am so sick of everyone making this an MS-only problem. Does everyone forget that Apple's computer price includes the price of the OS? Just because Apple sells the software and hardware in one go doesn't mean that the same thing is happening here---i.e. you are paying for the OS if you want it or not.

Re:I couldn't disagree with you more

[davydagger]

"I happen to be modded down -1 often here touting that Windows is simply a better option for a regular pc for average Joe "

because its FUD.

you haven't obviously used modern versions of linux, or your entirely biased. Windows is far far far behind on user interface, and windows 8 was a sad attempt to catching up to UNITY/Gnome shell.

Just like the app stores from Apple/MS were sad attempts at keeping up with the Ubuntu Software Center.(years later).

Or mabey you'll start citing contributes the former made by patenting things other people invented.

Re:I couldn't disagree with you more

[hairyfeet]

Ubuntu 11 new enough for you? And again if you are so confident step right up and take "The Hairyfeet Challenge" where we will test the distro of YOUR CHOICE against Windows, the rules are simple,

1.-It has to be a distro touted for home users, no making your own or using an expensive enterprise product that home users won't have access to, 2.-It has to have at least 1 release out at the same time Windows Vista was released, that's Jan 2007 in case you are wondering, 3.- while you will be allowed to use any CLI tools during setup (since during that portion you will be the builder NOT the customers) you must then update to current using ONLY the GUI tools.

But you won't accept the challenge and we all know why. I can install Office 2K7 and Vista RTM, update both through ALL the SPs and patches and at the end? 100% working drivers and software with no exception. Your product? WILL crap on itself and die, again with no exceptions.

Re:I couldn't disagree with you more

[davydagger]

"1.-It has to be a distro touted for home users, no making your own or using an expensive enterprise product that home users won't have access to, 2.-It has to have at least 1 release out at the same time Windows Vista was released, that's Jan 2007 in case you are wondering, 3.- while you will be allowed to use any CLI tools during setup (since during that portion you will be the builder NOT the customers) you must then update to current using ONLY the GUI tools."

linuxmint.com

it does all that and more. Mint and Ubuntu both have automatic updates, and nice GUIs for manual updates. in fact all the tools are GUI, and command line is optional.

also, microsoft does not have as anything as neat as jockey for install drivers.

oh, and here is the davey dagger, challenge, to one up you.

GUI tools ONLY durring setup/install. Again, mint and ubuntu pass, does windows?

In fact, mint also makes available OEM installer disks, that after I set up for a customer, asks all the username, timezone, language, personal info crap at first boot. All in GUI, with a mouse, with easy to read menus.

http://www.linuxmint.com/release.php?id=18

Also, tell me more about "windows support", most of the time, MS will tell you to call whomever sold you the computer, and the idiot you call in the phone is just that, an unhelpful idjit who barely speaks english.

Re:I couldn't disagree with you more

[hairyfeet]

Tried it, Mint FAILED, the wireless and the sound were completely trashed by the end. It was a bog standard dell inspiron BTW.

In the end you simply can't change one simple fact: Linux is like the shifting sand, everything from the kernel up is in a constant state of flux so drivers and subsystems get shat on all the time. Look at what DE, sound subsystem, and what kernel Mint was using in Jan 07 and what they are using now, we are probably looking at a good dozen plus revs in between jan 07 and today. How many kernels did Vista go through? Sound subsystems? DEs?

But you go right ahead and try it, because I already have tried it with Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora (I knew that one was hopeless but I had a FOSSie that insisted I use it because he thought anything by RH was God), Sabayon, PCLOS, and Mandriva. Not a SINGLE ONE, not one, came out the other end with 100% working software and drivers, not one.

And I don't know what you are smoking but you haven't need any CLI for setup or install of Windows since Windows 9x, in fact Win 7 will even download and install all the drivers through WU for you during install if you like. Meanwhile here is a list of all the major showstoppers currently in Linux, please not the date at the top of the page. Also not the blue words which are links to the proof by Linux sites such as Phrononix, not some random guy's blogs. These are respectable Linux sites pointing out serious issues with drivers and software yet if you check out the original list from 3 years ago you'll see that not only is more than half of the issues from 3 years ago STILL there, but they have simply added new bugs and new issues on top of the old.

I'm sorry but there is a REASON why Linux can't break out past 1%, that is because it simply fails at such trivial tasks like updates so badly due to its fragmented nature of design.

Re:I couldn't disagree with you more

[davydagger]

lol,

I am posting this from a computer with linux mint

you can't change facts:

your a brownshirt who shifts goalposts, and has no idea what your talking about.

you lost, go home.