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LA Weekly: The Lonliness of Linux
Bad Juju writes "
Part 1 of 3
on Linux from LA Weekly...semi-informed Linux-using journalist..citing cultural literacy as an excuse for using MS..not totally negative. We'll see how the next 2 articles come out. "
And over the past 4 years, I have had no company request anything BUT Word and Excel, and the few times files were sent in WP/Quattro they were re-requested in Word/Excel.
Ever tried to send plain ASCII text or tab-separated spreadsheet?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
All our data starts out as comma delimited data. We stopped sending files in that format 4 years ago - basically when everyone started requesting the Excel formated data.
Comma-separatel list *is* supported by Excel. Directly. If they want some pre-processed graphics you can generate and attach it, or give them scripts that will generate that in their beloved Excel. But no, it was easier for you to say "yes, sir!" and contribute to this proprietary-fromats madness.Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
But if Judith Lewis will find a local LUG, she'll find out that Linux users have *better* ones.
--
It's hard to type.
How hard is it to learn to type plain text? That's all that's required for most of the communication people do. Basic HTML is relatively easy, too, and suffices for most of the rest it.
I'm a MacOS/linuxppc user! ;) ;)
There's nothing _that_ obligatory about the W98/W95/Wforever interface. It always amazes and fascinates me how people put on blinders and make assumptions in very MS-centric ways: maybe it's just easier for me to see since I have never ever owned a Wintel PC! (or had one in the house, or done schoolwork on one, or worked with one in the workplace etc etc)
People assume there has to be a taskbar. Why does there have to be a taskbar? To see what programs are open. Well, you could have a little tile or icon that popped out a list of running programs when clicked on (Mac system 8 and under), you could have a little application with lots of info about everything that is running for only when you really need serious process info (top, of course, the Unix version of this type of tool: also MacOSX has top, in a spiffy translation to GUI instead of ascii-art, but keeping all the organisation precisely the same!). Or you could have a scrolling wheel device that looks like those tacky web counters, and you roll it with the mouse or even use one of those scrollwheels (wee, MS tech, ohboy) to see what apps are available- click the app that comes up to raise it... or simply leave the whole thing to the person's memory, rather like a Mac user who never needs to check the apps menu because he or she remembers perfectly well what apps were launched, including ones with no open windows currently showing. That, too, is possible- something will always need to be memorized, even if it is 'duh, button in taskbar mean running proggy'.
Now, this little rant was entirely and singlemindedly about process shortcut tools. Imagine all the other windows98 interface details and consider how other ways could exist to do those things. I _do_ hope people are not equating checkboxes and radio buttons with W98: everybody does those, they aren't specifically Windows at all. Some Windowsish features are actually detrimental- for instance, tab-panel interfaces are most often used to not have to think about interface but instead organize UI like you were shoving it into a drawer- tabpanel interfaces tend toward the really arbitrary and annoying, and there's no situation where you _have_ to take several unrelated interface objects and bung them into one UI container to hit the user with the ability to do half a dozen unrelated things under one dialog box. This is just poor design... but I'm beginning to cover other bases, so I'll shut up
applix won't import Word 95 or Word 97 files. The last version that it will import or export (according to their web site) is Word 6.0.
If I wan't to write a word processing document, Applixware is fine. I have StarOffice and Wordperfect8 too.
I can get by without Word - easily.
I do have one problem with Linux though... There is more software available than I have time to run - and it irkes the heck out of me!
Using Windows is like... pulling teeth with no anesthesia using rusty pliers.
I go over to my friend's house every once in a while - he's heavily into games and runs Windows98.
Here is the scenario:
I arrive to find him working on his computer adding this new widget or that. Usually, he's adding a new cooling device for his CELERON. Big fans and heatsinks, WaterFall, temperature gauges, Voodoo cards etc... This takes him about 30 minutes.
Next, comes loading the drivers and rebooting, downloading the latest drivers, loading them and rebooting again and again and again. Going into the BIOS to jimmy around with the settings. Half the time, the Windows OS is bluescreening and asking to be rebooted. This takes another hour and a half.
Then, he has to figure out what is wrong with his network because it ain't working now. More rebooting and loading of drivers and rebooting.
Then, he loads a new game he's downloaded. Something goes wrong. The DLL's get corrupted half the time and he has to reinstall Windows from his image file. This takes another 2 hours.
By this time, I'm falling asleep so... he makes some coffee or expresso.
This has been a day in the life of a Windows Gamer. YMMV
With LINUX, I can download the source code (or binaries) to a zillion different programs. Compile and run with hardly ever a problem. I almost NEVER have to reboot - can't remember the last time I rebooted because of a crash. I can sit down and get to work doing what I want to do without having to FIX my computer on a daily basis. I can't put into words the increase in my piece of mind. I've been spoiled by Linux! I've been ruined! Woe is me... I have no patience for Windows anymore.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Continuing the story after the coffee episode...
We begin playing a game after installing it and rebooting and downloading the latest patch and installing it and rebooting again.
We get into the game and begin playing... everything is going fine - when all of a sudden. BANG! Blue screen or automatic reboot. Kule! I just love watching the BIOS information and hearing the beep. It makes my day.
We try to play the game again... all is well until. WHIMPER~ Windows freezes. Reboot!
In the game again. This time we play awhile then when we try to save where we are in case of a lockup - Windows locks up. FIZZLE. Damn!
I can't stand that freakin OS Windows and can't wait till more games are available on Linux. The world will be a better place.
Was I ranting? Who me? Naaaw - you've got to be kidding! I never do that. I do? Oh.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
What does that have to do with the original post?
I love Linux, and have switched to it from NT because I find Linux far superior for developing real applications. I would REALLY like to hear the specific areas in which you found linux lacking. Email me if need be -- I'm willing to put my name behind my posts.
Ohhh, yeah. LyX, baby! :)
And Emacs for coding.
.
I can write a decent essay when I put my mind to it. Having everything spelled right... now, that I have trouble with.
So I use LyX (which uses ispell as its spellchecker backend). I was able to become proficient w/ it in five minutes. Are the documents I make in LyX somehow worse than if I'd written them with a typewriter or in vim?
Indeed.
When switching from Linux I just added a new (8GB) hard drive and kept my old data on the old one. Going through it recently, it struck me how much of one's life can end up on a little spinning disk.
I don't really play MIDIs much anymore, though now that I've got a faster CPU I should be able to play 'em via software synth (there are a few such programs available for linux I understand to be pretty good). Anyhow, do keep the stuff around -- it's nice to be able to be sentimental once in a while.
Something I've found, comparing the work on my new HD to the old one... the OS you use influnces who you are. I've stopped dabbling in graphics and play less games (if any at all). I have more programming projects and tend to reach completion on more of them. Although I have spreadsheet software, I now make no spreadsheets; Although I have graphical mailreaders, I use PINE. I'm more attentive to security issues, using SSH regularly.
I care more about doing things right and less about simply making it work. Simply reloading the OS is not an option; Rebooting is not an option; These mean defeat, and I will not accept defeat. Nothing happens "just because"; If there is a problem, I WILL find it and fix it.
Okay, enough rambling. Anyhow, I do encourage you to make the switch... but keep your old stuff 'round.
Perhaps many Unix folks are perfectionists somewhat; Good linux sysadmins (or hackers) will not accept anything wrong with their systems; They know what constitutes a good file format and are greatly disturbed by having to use bad ones -- I am, at least.
Honestly -- I look at the Glade save files (in xml) and consider them beautiful. I can edit them without using the application they're generated in... it's a Good Thing. Hackers appreciate Good Things.
Word's file format is a Bad Thing. I'll leave it at that; Other folks have explained why. I have no tolerance for such ugliness and the arrogance assumed by the use of an incompatible format.
I'm lucky; I communicate w/ my co-workers by email, sending no documents in formats other than text... When I have to turn in nice-looking documents I write them up using LyX and print or send in PostScript documents.
Of course, other folks may not be so lucky. They'll have to find their own way (perhaps through WordPerfect, Applix or WordViewer, a program I've seen on Freshmeat that converts Word docs to HTML) -- but as for me, my idealism won't allow me to use something so ugly and wrong.
---
Does this make me a software hippie? Perhaps. The folks I work with don't think of me that way, though. I don't talk to them in terms of ideals but rather of practicality and prices. On slashdot, however, my ideals are a bit better accepted.
It IS disturbing.
People should know how their car works. Not be able to fix it, neccesarily, but have a very basic idea of what does what. If they don't, they're liable to get BSsed out of a lot of cash when it breaks down.
People should know how their blender works. If they don't, they're liable to hurt themselves.
There should be no black boxes. Really, there shouldn't. Computers shouldn't be black boxes. Appliances shouldn't be black boxes. The policital system shouldn't be a big black box.
Because I believe these things, have I lived a sheltered life? Do I consider myself superior? BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN THE EMPOWERMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL THROUGH UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR ENVIRONMENT, AM I SOME SORT OF FREAK?
Society should not become too complicated for an individual to understand. Once it has, things have gone terrably wrong and should be fixed.
This doesn't always work... I'm not sure if it's QuickSave or what, but I've seen docs where strings came up with absolutely no usable text.
Is it the X server crashing (or causing the kernel to crash -- as a privilidged app it can do that) or the linux kernel crashing soly in response to unprivilidged apps?
If it's the second of the two, there are plenty of folks on linux-kernel who'd be interested in hearing the details of your problems.
I don't use Windows, but I have no problem with playing AOE or running Encarta under WINE. I don't play AOE or run Encarta (after switching from Windows I've really stopped playing games, though I've got several), but I could and have no moral problem with it.
Anyhow, though, the OS one uses really can alter one's life. I've got a big rambling post somewhere else in this article about that... search the main page if you care.
It's a kernel issue, and so should be posted to linux-kernel.
Remember, the kernel (and the drivers embedded in it) are the same for all distros. Red Hat or Debian or Joe Bob's Linux, makes no diff.
Unless it's video drivers you're talking about. That's the X server's problem.
Look at what happened to the commercial unices when they forked.
You find a bug using the kernel in Joe Bob's distro. You report it to linux-kernel. It gets fixed. Now not only you but the folks running Red Hat, Debian and Little Joey's Linux Distro get the benefits. This is supposed to be a bad thing?
Regarding the TCP/IP implementation, there's very good documentation behind this; It's better not only than that of NT but of almost all commercial unices.
Regarding the video driver issue... I disagree that video drivers should be integrated with the kernel, even for a significant performance increase, in a server OS. Face it -- reliability is one helluva lot more important than graphics performance in a server or a developmennt platform.
As for your problems w/ linux, I can only say that my experiences have been very different. After moving my low-end hardware from win32 (P5/133, P5/90, some old used 486's), I've been thrilled with the performance. Some of those 486s have been doing AppleTalk sharing faster than the PowerMac Workplace Servers previously given the job; My home machine was almost unusable when working on big software under VC++'s development environment and compiler; With Emacs/GCC, I'm still using that hardware -- and happy with it.
Please detail your performance problems... unless you're talking about something like StarOffice. We all agree that that sucks (well, performance-wise, at least).
I'm a student at CSU Chico. They do have Windows-based development stations here, but the lion's share of work is done on Unix. Some folks in my assembly class use the Windows interface to our MIPS simulator because it looks prettier; I'm writing a nice GTK one to dispel that.
Banning folks from using pico was really a good idea. I see folks using it and cringe; As it requires the user to do all the formatting themselves (and does things like word wrap by default that just mess up code), it really results is much less readable code (as compared to Emacs with its auto-tabbing and other programmer-friendly features). Re the reasons for not using Windows for development... well, just ask me by email; It's a bit much to put here.
Anyhow, you're entirely right -- that guy just gave a completely unfounded position without any backing evidence, making him no more useful than any other piece of PR garbage.
Posted by F.A.N.G.:
It isn't Word, either.
The only legitimate use of Windows is to run Solitare.
Posted by Clueless Newbie:
If someone sends me Word *.doc file I usually
request it in text-only RTF format even though StarOffice does a pretty decent job of converting.
It's a matter of principle.
Why is this FUD? It's just a Linux user's musings on the social aspects of using it in a Windows World. There's no intent to feed Fear, Uncertainty, or Doubt here; it raises the usual (important) issue of file formats, something that fits in the "Stuff That Matters" category for any Linuxer who has to deal with Word-ed junk.
Slashdot continues to be visited mostly by Windows users...
Oh? Where are your numbers?
Are we here to impress people? Screw them. Screw you.
Who is being served here?
Feature stories about what people are acutally doing with Linux and other open technology in education, business and at home.
Did you read the article? It was written by a writer for LA Weekly. She's in the writing business, or does that not count, since she doesn't pull in $100K? The article is Part One of three - the series is only one-third over, and you see fit to turn this thing into a gratuitous anti-/. rant that's as meaningful as the copy-and-paste antics of the recent pro-MS trollbots. Get a fsckin' grip!
Move along. Let us know when you get your site up and running. Will it be called "Pissed Geek Troll" or something?
--
--
=8^
>But if everyone I worked with spoke Chinese, I wouldn't piss and moan that they didn't understand my english.
Even if it required that you spend hundreds of dollars (buying MS Office) to understand their "Chinese"? Even though they are capable of speaking English? Even though this "Chinese" changes every couple of years, each time requiring additional outlays of cash and time spent learning it?
It's rather like sending all your vital letters postage due...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
>Even the great plagarist
Bell's Second Law of USENET*: Spelling and grammar flames almost invariably contain similar errors.
It's "plagiarist."
(Bell's First Law of USENET: No matter how farcical or satirical your message, someone out there will think you were serious.)
* Obviously we're not on USENET, but the laws are much the same...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Personally, I hate the idea of sending someone text in a BINARY file. Especially since some of those blocks contain whatever just happened to be in a chunk of memory at the time (like passwords, the secret formula etc..). With a TEXT file, I know I needn't worry about that.
Personally, I'm going to laugh in a couple of decades when businesses start realising those old documents they saved as Word97 are completely unreadable in WizBang2029 and they have to spend big bucks to convert and re-archive everything.
Meanwhile, ASCII has allready been around for decades, and will probably still be in use in 2029. If not, it is at least well documented.
Innovation is creating "new things" that helps you get customers. It is always market-driven.
That includes "creative imitation". It's how Microsoft wins - again & again... They give the herd what they want, even if it's not what they need.
Sucks, huh? Deal with it. No monopoly can win forever on creative imitation...
-Stu
Ascii is portable, So long as you only want to do US english (NO £ sign, dont you know) The 8 bit ISO charsets are much nicer, BTW does anyone know where I can get some nice ISO-8859-8 charsets?
(Hebrew)
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I mean, using Windows and Word just to stay in touch with the ``culture''? This is sheer lunacy. First of all, Windows has no culture. It has no leading characters that would create a culture. There are guys like Ballmer and Gates, but they have the personalities of squid and next to no technical capabilities. Secondly, familiarity with the kludges of a poor quality operating system doesn't constitute cultural awareness. It's just a form of self-inflicted torture, i.e. masochism.
In the UNIX and free software worlds there is a true culture. There are characters like Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Alfred Aho, Chris Torek, Keith Bostic, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, David Korn, Stephen Bourne, Alan Cox, Donald Knuth, Bill Joy, etc. I could drop a lot more, these are just names that pop into my head.
As well, the long endurance of software in this culture leads to a true heritage, whereas the historical awareness of a typical Windows user doesn't extend beyond the previous releases of the software packages he or she is using. The legacy behind it all is just disgusting, anyway. MS-DOS, for instance, is just a bad memory for those who used it, and users of modern Windows feel little connection to that time, except for backward compatible kludges whose origin they are hardly aware of.
Whereas people who used early UNIX versions like V6 have fond recollections and stories to tell to new generations of hackers. There is a greater awareness among UNIX users about where it all came from and how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
Also, I take exception to the remark that vi takes years to learn. That is just downright silly. I remember I was proficient in about a week to the level that I could do all the things in vi that a lesser editor is barely capable of. I wouldn't say that I'm exceptionally gifted in learning text editors, either. The ``years'' estimate for learning vi might apply to the mentally retarded, but not to the person of average intelligence.
Where is the standard which describes the Word format?
For something to be a ``de jure'' standard, there has to be a document which describes it which is approved by ISO and its member bodies throughout the world.
Then there are de-facto standards, like RFC's and so on. Things which are standardized either through an informal document which everyone agreees upon, or in the form of a sample open-source implementation. Some communication protocols would fall into the former category. Things like the X11 window system would be the latter.
The Word document format isn't ANY kind of standard. It's simply whatever the latest version of Microsoft word reads and writes. It's a moving target that is in the sole control of one corporation. I don't know of any programs that are *completely* compatible with Word 97. They are based on reverse engineering, which is far less reliable than following a specification.
A specification, even an ambiguous or informal one, is superior to reverse engineering. At least it gives you something to argue about. People can get together and hash out fixes to a specification and then update their respective implementations.
She got a point; that I may not like it, that would be another story. Before I got my hands on WP8 for Linux, it was a pain in the ass whenever one of my windoozer friends sent me a Word document. If they could at least save it in Word 2 or 6 format (or rtf for Christ's sake), I may open it with Applix Words. But no, they insisted (and still do) in sending me Word 97 files (@#$~@&^* ... some Klingon cursing ... _*&%@!) And when I think about it, it is sad that I had to make a huge download of WP using my 33B modem just so that I could open these stupid Word 97 files.
...)? That's where illiteracy really is. To them, Linux (or anything non-windooze, even something such as Mac or BeOS) will be too much for their mental capacity (and willigness to learn.) They have chosen to be computer users instead of computer professionals.
:) They, I believe, will have the willigness to learn Linux which implies learning about the internals of computer far more than learning Windows.
It is surprising to see people that do not know that there is such a thing as Word versions lower than 97. It is depressing when some of these people have just got their B.S. degree in Computer Science or M.I.S. Scary shit. Scary shit that these people still wonder why the receiver (even in Windooze) cannot a Word document they sent (which btw contained a LINKED Excel spreadsheet which wasn't sent in the mail.) I do not care that much about the general, untamed computer user. They don't need to know the dark secrets and digital mantras of computing, but, man, what about computer people (CS, MIS,
This form of ignorance is wide spread at all levels of professional society. So Linux, at least for now, is only used (consistently) by those willing to learn. That's the key, willigness to learn. That, I think, will be the greatest asset of countries like Mexico. Thousands and thousands of students and professionals who would do anything to have a chance to work in a computer (even if it were running DOS 1.x
M$ did a good job in creating a massive illiterate population. That way, it ensured a consistent, uninterrupted cash flow to their pockets.
Please read the post. Go ahead, read it. Now:
:-) )
He was talking about people whose job it is to know about computers. Not a random appliance. Understand?
Daniel
(and btw: I certainly don't know how the internals of a blender, a TV, or a car work in detail and I couldn't fool with them, but I have a general clue about what's inside. I don't think TVs have hamsters.
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Heh... with friends like those, who needs enemies?
^D
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
With friends like that, who needs enemies?
I use Linux because it DOESN'T CRASH ON ME!
IOW, it works, and does what it does very very well.
Of course, I design and develop software for a living, and things like perl, sed, awk, grep, emacs, and others are the screwdrivers and pliers that get me through my day. While they've been ported to run in a DOS box under '95, they don't run as well. For some reason, they're real slow to boot (I think I know why).
Unfortunately, my target debugger and compiler run under DOS/Windows, so I'm stuck dual booting. But, even with the hassles this causes, it's STILL FASTER for me to reboot into Linux, run a 1000 file grep, and reboot back into '95.
Linux works. Windows doesn't. 'Nuff said.
In Liberty, Rene
In my experience, NT's TCP/IP stack is about the WORST implementation I've seen. Well, second worse, 95's takes the cake.
The only time I've seen Linux crash is when I've been monkeying with the kernel, or various drivers, or had a hardware problem.
In Liberty, Rene
It was rather blatantly AND repulsively sexist. I don't know if you are the same AC or a different AC, though, but it was.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Surely it's more of a hint to learn how to use "A" to append to the end of a line? Using cursor keys to go past the end of the line seems to me counterintuitive. Maybe that's just a hacker mentality, and it's perfectly logical to the general population. Not that I use cursor keys anyway. h, j, k and l work just fine without the need to remove your hands from the main part of the keyboard. Besides, they're the same keys as moria/angband and they're even in the same layout as the cursor keys on a good old speccy.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I do all my documenting in vi. ASCII text is small, portable, able to be grepped, and doesn't ever ever ever contain macro viruses.
MS is culture in the same way that WalMart is culture.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
I didn't ask, I just sort of did it (Set up a big ol' Big Brother monitoring system, paging, etc). :-)
Then I told my boss, we got a support contract, and now I'm Linux admin.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
If most people use Windows who cares? Do I need to spend hours online just preaching"LINUX RULZ, WINDOZE DR00LZ"...NO. I just go on being happy with Linux. Not because it is not MS, But because the way it is. I like not crashing, I like a OS that is logical. I like knowing why it does something, and how it did it. I could care less if MS whent away...or if they ruled the earth..Why? Because my linux box and the other linux users like me will still go on.
:)
Alot of the "LinuxBigots" realy do give Linux a bad name. I see them in going into MS-OS(or MacOS) chat rooms, or MS-OS message boards and posting their AntiMS crap. Most non linux users view the Linux using group as HS hippys or something. Think about it...would you want 100's of MS users coming into your Linux message boards or chat rooms and ranting and raving about how we are all dumb for not using their OS of choice?
We could all do alot more good for Linux coding or making better docs then we do when we try to convert "The MS using Sheep". Face it, if they realy like their OS then not much will make them switch. Just like not much would make me switch to MS. It dosnt to anyone any good if you sound like a nutcase MacHead or a bible pusher. I don't need it, i don't want it, so leave me the hell alone.
Of course thats just my opinion...I could be wrong
______
ya ya...my spelling sucks..so what
I have to return some videotapes...
I use "strings" to extract the relevant content from word documents people send me. Then I reply with gzipped postscript. :-)
...richie
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Check the W3C site--Microsoft is one of the authors of the XML format. They may not be leading the charge, but they're not being dragged "kicking and screaming" toward it at all. This doesn't necessarily mean it'll support it in a way which is easy for non-Microsoft programs to interpret, but let's be clear: Microsoft is doing this because they want to be "buzzword compliant." The actual demand for XML in the target market for Microsoft Office (primarily business offices with general secretarial needs and some basic statistical modeling in Excel) is nearly non-existent.
It should also be noted that while Office 2000 should support XML, Microsoft has suggested that XML will not be its native file format. The "problem" of people using Word as the de facto file format for exchanging documents will still be around.
It's remarkable that an article that's a personal reflection from someone who likes Linux, has been using it a while and is buying a new computer to re-install it is attracting essentially nothing but flames. What was it? That she dared to write that people in the business world have to have Microsoft Office compatibility? Even worse, she admitted she's--gasp--acclimated to Word's keystroke commands.
The horrors! The fact that she finds any value in being in sync with the majority of computer users negates anything else she might have to say, doesn't it? If it's not All Linux, All The Time, to hell with it. There's no hardship in using Linux if you're a real hacker.
Right.
Judith Lewis should be commended, not flamed, for writing a funny article that encapsulates the dilemma most users are intimately familiar with when they're trying to use a computer platform that's outside the mainstream. This kind of reaction makes me question just how serious the Linux community is about "capturing the desktop"--people who think that gvim and LaTeX together can replace Microsoft Word for the average office worker, journalist or humanities academic don't really understand what those people do. Insulting them isn't going to lead to a greater understanding of Linux on their part--it's going to lead to a dismissal of it based less on technology than on the coldness of the users. It's probably not an exaggeration to say that for every one person turned onto Linux by Slashdot there's several more turned off by the apparent attitude.
(And, just so flamers have the proper weapons loaded, I use gvim on a regular basis and prepare a quarterly newsletter in LaTeX. I am not "dissing" text editors by saying they're not word processors any more than I'm "dissing" my word processor of choice, Nota Bene, by not writing C++ in it.)
Agreed. From the looks of things, Word Perfect uses the same format it has since version 6.0, and it seems to work just fine, even exchanging files between Linux WP8 and Win-don't WP8. Word's constant format changes have to be just another way to suck up consumers' money. Either that, or just shoddy software engineering to begin with. I would put my money on the former.
I guess I'm the exception to your poll. Although I'm probably quite proficient with Word (using tons of wps over the years will do that to you), I haven't used it regularly in... 7 or 8 years. Nowadays, I'd say I open up word and do things in it about once every 2 or 3 months. I use WP/Unix more often, say once every 2 weeks or so. It's nice working within a Unix shop.
(FWIW, while my fiancee's machine has word on it, it also has Linux and WP8 and she's been transitioning over to that and LaTeX.)
The problem with nroff is that it is difficult to find a good tutorial on using it. Anyone know of any?
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
About eight months ago I gave up on dual booting 95 and linux. I realized I don't need Word Processors at all, I don't need games, I don't need warez; I don't need any of that crap.
I needed to learn linux, and it just wasn't going to happen if I kept booting into comfy, crash happy windows.
It's painful to switch because unix was so alien to me, yet I saw an elegance and beauty in it's design that I just didn't see in windows.
Now I can't stand to even look at windows, and I get along in Linux just fine. I write everything in emacs/html.
When using windows I feel chained, hampered. Dead ends and barriers to use everywhere. Learning unix is definitely liberating.
support gun control: take guns from cops
The only things MS has innovated are those stinking macro viruses, corrupted binary mailbox files, and untranslatable file formats. Word is absolute trash. Outlook is even worse. The two combined are incredible to behold in action, sort of like Satan.
Every day in my life is a new adventure in the cesspool of M$ software. Everything they make is pure, utter garbage.
support gun control: take guns from cops
"Demand the difference between their tuition and that of the nearest community college."
Chances are that s/he_is_talking about the nearest community college.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Hebrew or Yiddish? Not a joke, I really don't know and am curious.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Does she have the same delivery guy as Jon Katz?
If so, maybe they live close enough that she could give him writing lessons.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Windows 3.x maybe, but everybody knows Freecell is what keeps 95 around.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
> Yeah, but you wouldn't let 'em drive without a license would you? So why should they use a computer without a clue?
You don't need a license to use your feet, or a bicycle, so why should you need one to use a computer. They're tools, not weapons...;)
Or to paraphrase, "Considering that cars have been built to make people's lives easier, why should people *have* to learn how to drive them?"
Almost all tools that increase one's ability to do something, or give one an entirely new ability, will require have some learning curve. "Universally intuitive user interfaces" are a myth.
I'm not saying that all UI's are equal. You're right that a bash prompt is likely to be considerably less usable to a newbie than Windows Explorer. But some amount of training or experimentation is required to use either. Even using a mouse has a learning curve.
I agree too that the typical Linux desktop is a bit too much for the typical user. Things are progressing rather nicely though. If/when we finally get a standard desktop environment with lots of nice apps, and no longer have to worry about a.out vs elf and libc5 vs glibc issues, then newbies might be able to start using Linux.
Not being a newbie myself, I use Linux when I want to do something productive. I switch to NT when I want to play StarCraft.
This was about Microsoft Word and the self-
fulfilling standard it has become for word
processing. Self-fulfilling because of OEMs'
bundling Microsoft Office with new PCs for so
many years.
This woman is an ignorant coward.
As I see you read Alan Cox's great essay, I am
sure you saw the part about having to gently
remind "suits" about the way things are done in
the free software community, and do likewise for
AOLers about the Internet.
It is the same thing that must be done in
respect to information exchange in general.
When people post PowerPoint presentations and
Word documents to the Web, they need to be gently
reminded that it is Not The Right Thing To Do.
How long does it take to learn the needed
features in a GUI based word processor,
especially the modern gargantuan bloatware, to
become marginally proficient with it? I would
submit it takes far less time to learn some basic
HTML, especially if all you are going to
do is write a few paragraphs of text, like
Judith's column.
I do not think that the use of word processing
software has elevated the quality of journalism
or writing in general in any medium. If you are
incapable of spell checking your documents sans
the aid of word processor, do not write. Do not
call yourself a writer, and do not have your trash
published, especially on the Web; where so much
trash exists already, thanks to the likes of
Microsoft Word, Claris HomePage, Microsoft
FrontPage, et al.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
In Microsoft's Office 2000 Preview they concur. Notice how every page of that brochure touts Office 2000's Web integration and how documents created with it can easily be viewed with a Web browser.
Ignorant sheeple have placidly accepted the numerous incompatible file formats when what they should have been doing is breaking down the doors of software vendors. "What do you mean I need a plugin/viewer to open this document?"
Fuck that.
Fuck Mac bigots and PC weenies.
Fuck Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
And Judith? Fuck her. Fuck her and fuck her Word.doc bearing journalist friends. Their kind is dead, too.
Anyone who takes issue with that should read the piece on Douglas Englebart, a.k.a. The Man Who Invented The Mouse, that was mentioned on Slashdot a while back. He saw it all. Pervasively networked computers and hyperlinked documents. Information flowing and being shared, all for the good of humanity.
Instead what we got was a bunch of money grubbing, near sighted bastards who have perpetuated bug ridden applications and unstable operating systems.
15 years to accept a common file format for documents?!!!
15 years to give your operating system memory protection and preemptive multi-tasking?!!!
L O S E R S.
These people have made billions off people's misery; by keeping them in the dark; by feeding and playing off their ignorance.
No longer. The Internet is the "killer application". All "Independant Software Vendors", as they like to call themselves, will conform to it, or die. I cite as proof the fact that the maker of the world's number one application is trumpeting not the spell checker in the next version of its product, but its ability to integrate with the Web.
So take your "Linux will suceed when it has a killer desktop application" and shove it up your ass. First of all, Linux is not the X Window System. Linux does not have an "easy to use desktop", and never will. Of course there will be mass confusion over this, because of companies like Red Hat and Corel. "Making Linux easier to use." "Linux for the everyman."
No, you are piling crap on top of the X Window System; and by the way, if your crap does not compile, with minimal tweaking, on every other UNIX running X, it is a failure. Of course, you think people are too stupid to understand the distinction between X and Linux. Well, you are wrong. People are ignorant because you keep them that way.
Why? So you can ensure your business's continued existance, of course. Breeding ignorance ensures they will be back for that upgrade, or will sign that service agreement.
"Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day..." ...you know the rest.
Standardize your company/office/school/home/girl scout troop on HTML/XML/Java(well...not until Sun really opens it up) now. When Office 2000 come out, you will be hailed as a visionary; and hopefully people will think twice before assuming the necessity of "upgrading" to it.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
...and for a longer, equally profane response
to your idiocy, see my other post on this topic.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
The "Loneliness of Linux" column had nothing to do with Linux.
Read it.
It is about some wench who cannot spell check
her own documents, and whose friends all send her
documents in some strange format which needs some
strange program to decipher.
Before you get your panties in a bunch about
Feel free to make up your own questions, pursuingthat, let me ask you this:
a similar line of investigation, children.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
the writer of the column did.
The issues are twofold:
column, and the column has nothing to do with Linux.
Nevertheless, and due to a general lack of
reading comprehension, people will read the title,
read the column, and come away thinking
that it was about Linux; that is most evident by a
good number of the responses here.
lot of people think exchanging documents saved in
proprietary file formats is acceptable in 1999.
I do not give a flying fuck what people use to
author their documents or that people make
spelling and grammatical errors. I do care about
perpetuating idiocy via resignation to its
assumed insurmountable dominance.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
My post had nothing to do with Linux.
Your post had nothing to do with Linux.
The following profanity has everything to do
with your lack of reading comprehension:
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
view a Microsoft Word document has anything to do
with Linux.
Or "the ability to run Microsoft Word" is a
"feature most people need to get their work
done".
Or, for that matter, believes Linux might have
something to do with a "katzian divine revolution";
the thought of which makes me ill, even though
I have no idea what such a thing might be.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Silly person.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
GRRRRR@!#@ Anyone who dosen't wear wool jackets in the summertime is a PUSSY!@ Everyone knows that if something is convenient, then it isn't damn well worth doing. I mix shredded glass in with my corn flakes and DARE my mouth to bleed! I even spam sex messages in UNRELATED newsgroups!@ I don't use word processors, I write my own in asm every time I want to write something. I'm the baddest motha around, so you BETTER not try to mess with me. I'm so bad, I'm not even using the preview button.
But how do you WRITE PDF files from Linux? I've never looked into it, I know Adobe has an Acrobat Reader for Linux but does it have Acrobat too? Isn't Acrobat kind of expensive? Is there a PS to PDF converter I don't know about? :)
Inquiring minds want to know
.
A fiance who groks LaTeX ?!
You lucky bastard!!!
:)
Hehehe, she speaks!
OK, now I KNOW she's cool!
I agree with your assessment of StarOffice Judith... I found it perplexing that so many people recommended the beast. Not only is it a piece of bloatware that would make Bill Gates proud, it does a crappy job of translating all but the simplest of Office97 docs.
But I also found your characterization of vi a bit misleading... years? I know you meant no harm by your exaggeration, but think how intimidating that is to someone who wants to try Unix ("it will take me years to learn to edit an ASCII file?").
Oh yeah, I liked that sushi analogy too... damn I'm hungry now.
Cheers,
.
Oh... duh. Here it is! ps2pdf !
/me slaps forehead
.
On a 486/66 ? You must be kidding ! It brings a P100 to its knees. Oh, and the word filters suck quite badly - not that thats SD's fault.
personally, I like braiding things out of road-kill squirrels...
I think that the poster was just trying to conjure up an image of generally mentally weak people. that's what it did to me, anyways. her article made me nauseated. hmm. let's not even mention StarOffice and just kinda whine. ok. good reason to use (what she admits to be) inferior technology. I sent her a polite but firm letter. I hope she takes them seriously and stops writing this crap.
personally, I thought she sounded rather ditzy -- and it wasn't just the way she mistreated her hardware. my computer's been knocked around quite a bit as well (but not down the stairs...) but I don't use the failure of my hardware to reflect on how I never use my better OS becasue I want to have "cultural literacy"
/not/ a technical reason. that's a ditz reason, and it sounds like my sister the cheerleader or my guy friend who will probably never stop using a Mac simply because he used to like a girl who used one -- and he doesn't like it.
I don't have a problem with people using MS Windows -- I do myself. it just annoys me when people spout random crap and act in a totally non-logical fashion -- and then try to justify it with whatever random reason they can come up with. maybe she's just been brainwashed by MS, but certainly someone has wrung whatever computer sense might have been in her originally out for her to jutiify using inferior technology with a need to fit in. that is
People confuse me, I guess.
whatever he/she may have said, I actually didn't realize it was a woman writing (didn't check the byline) until after. I still came to the conclusion that she needed some help.
stupidity is what really trancends gender
stupidity is what really transcends gender
well, if she needs the newest version of MS Word and she likes Linux so much, use StarOffice or something.
stupidity is what really transcends gender
that's originally from some story about B'rer Fox and B'rer Rabbit... Fox was trying to get rabbit, and so he made a "tar-baby" so fox would grab it and not get him... fox grabbed and got VERY stuck...
:-)
yes. random.
.. and you'd have to admit that the windoze 98 interface IS pretty slick
It's entertaining, which is more than you can say for a lot of things. And it never pretends to be anything more than it is.
The Rock says: Know your role.
WordPerfect 8 reads _and_ writes Word format ...).
files for all versions of Word, as I heard the amplified voices from the Corel booth at LinuxWorld say (over and over
In addition, Quattro Pro at least reads (probably writes, too, but I wasn't paying much attention) Excel files, and will be available under Linux Real Soon Now (2nd or 3rd quarter this year, from what I heard in the Corel Keynote address).
No, I don't work for Corel. AFAIK, Applix's stuff probably can do all this, too.
No, no, no. Linux is the Sushi of the OS menu. Loved by some, disliked by others, but mostly people are stunned that you would actually eat something of that nature.
You are intimidated, at first, by the otherness of it, but after your first bite, you are transported into delight, and wonder what you ever feared about it.
I've been noticing more and more of a trend away from Word format, and more and more documents published in HTML, so that they can easily be placed on the company Intranet and/or Internet.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
P.S. -- The expression is "Hear, hear!"
Zontar
(somewhere in tenn.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The real monopoly is not Windows 3.1/95/NT. The real monopoly Microsoft has is on MS Office.
Despite the talk of thousands of applications for Windows, 90% people are prefectly happy with
MS productivity applications (Office, Outlook, Project). There are millions of files files lying around. I don't what is going to be Linux standard office suite, Koffice/Achutung/Staroffice/Applix. Whatever it is, it has be able to read and port to MS formats. The moment it is done, Linux has a chance to move to desktop. Writing a filter to MS files is a complex undertaking. But it is absolutely necessary for Linux to get a foothold on the desktop. Until then Linux on the desktop is a pipedream.
Ramana
I work in place where all the documents are MS Office docs, and I don't have a problem using StarOffice, wich is free for personal use.
Did you try to change?
I tend to move people in my office toward WordPerfect when I can, just because it's the WP of choice among the administrators at the school I work at. Unfortunately, Linux-on-the-desktop here isn't too likely. Our primary app is a bloated, nasty thing that tries to "emulate" a Mac look-n-feel within windows. Consequently, my one-man war against Redmond is carried out on the applications side, with the exception of Access, which allows me a convenient back door to the school app's dbf files and spares me running 8 meg of app over a 10baseT net with 100 other clowns. Perl scripts are underway to cure that, too, but Access does what I need it to.
I don't think the author of that piece was too out there. I also concentrate on Windows 95 from time to time because it helps when I provide support to people. They don't want to hear me crying about better alternatives, and neither do the IT managers here. They just want me to help them.
In the mean time, I'm looking forward to seeing what Corel has to offer with the whole desktop Linux thing.
----------
----------
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
"A horse laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms"
I use linux now for everything. I've discovered that for a profession that is entirely engaged in text documents, linux is the answer.
;?
Now that legal research has switched to the internet, lawyers (and other info research oriented professions) need a computer that can stay on the internet all day, dowload hundreds of pages of text/html files, and never cough.
I've lost hundreds of hours over the years do the same in a Windows environment. My system has crashed and burned baby!
So when you say, 'use windows to be more productive.' I beg to differ. Who remembers to hit the save button every five minutes to ensure no information loss.
In fact, in the legal setting those lost hours may not be billable (i.e., they are the fault of the attorney's negligence in using something defective).
No, Linux has been a godsend for me. My uptime is permanent, My 56k modem connection pulls info at 10K/sec. (yes it's true 'insmod bsd_comp && insmod ppp_deflate).
I work on legal issues for debian. Nothing could be better. When I share documents with my colleagues, I show them how they can edit documents in netscape's 'composer' and everyone can share no matter what wprocessor they use. Now the legal market is fully balkanized with users of wp-dos, Word9x, and WP6-8. There are a rediculous number of doc formatters.
I say compose in plain text/html, edit in plain text/html. Post info to intranet server. Format in your wordprocessor.
Needless to say. I never have Netscape composer crash on me. But for serious writing, I use PICO(TM).
I'd use vi, but I never learned how to make it word wrap. emacs is the same way. Although now I write html in emacs.
Give Joe Six pack the following linux configuration. xdm starts on boot, wmaker comes up. Big square icons for the following (wp, or staroffice, netscape, terminal). Tell them, in the black window type 'pon.'
There you go. Browser, wordprocessor. ppp connection. What else is there for Joe Six pack. Joe's gonna love how much faster his internet connection is now.
I'm a lawyer, trust me
At real technical institutions, (i.e., the UC system, CalTech, MIT), unix is the development tool.
Windows is not taught. I'm not a programmer so I can't really say why exactly, but all the students I know who learn CS learn it in linux, because it is a unix one can afford.
If you think, gcc, gdb, emacs, vi, etc. are tinker toys, then you are a tinker toy.`
My girlfriend's cs classes at uc davis even banned them from using PICO (why?) because they wanted them to learn real editors (i.e., vi/emacs). So there.
Buddy, you're a commercial, a T-Shirt; your a 30-second sound byte.
This fragment of a sentence explains it all:
"An operating system is a culture, with ways of doing and seeing and expressing things peculiar to its members..."
Stephen King once said that he is the "Big Mac and shake" of literature. I guess that makes M$ the Big Mac and shake of software. So, what's Linux?
I like to think of it as spicy, Moroccan vegetable stew (and no, I don't mean ratatouille) with cous cous.
Anyway, I like my private, M$-free culture better than the brain-dead culture my employer forces upon me.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I'm in definite agreement on that one.
A majority of the public doesn't even know what kind of computer they have, let alone how to operate it. They couldn't use Linux if they tried, because they can't even learn to use the power switch.
It is woeful ignorance and its perpetuation that keeps M$ in business.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Yeah, but you wouldn't let 'em drive without a license would you? So why should they use a computer without a clue?
Sure, they can do less damage with a computer, at least physical damage to other people, but I would think that everyone would want to understand at least how to get their work done on a computer in the most efficient manner.
We haven't seen productivity gains from computerization because of lusers who don't know how to use their hardware and OS (whatever it is).
EG, I've been given boringly repetitive work that was estimated at four hours and done it in 20 minutes, because I did the first two entries, saw there was a pattern and wrote a little script to do the rest. If Joe Blow luser ever learns to do that.... Well, I'll leave that up to your imagination.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Now seems a good point to comment that OpenDoc is still out there, not-quite-yet-dead.
IIRC, IBM & Apple were going to OpenSource the APIs. But I may be wrong.
-- Cerebus
-- Cerebus
Indeed, i have to agree with you there.
i'd almost say that linux is toro to be too specific.
(fatty tuna)
great now i'm hungry.
Your gvim suggestion is excellent. The latest version is 5.3. Get more info.
I only use Word for official reports. Everything else is done in VIM.
Feel the power of VIM.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
I've done some projects in Visual Basic for Applications/Word, but other than programming in it I don't have an in-depth knowledge of the thing. All the documents I create for myself or others are in plain text or HTML, and nobody has ever told me I can't continue using them.
:-(.
I have five actively-used computers. Two run Linux exclusively, one runs NT, one runs dual boot W95/Linux, and the other runs MacOS. Computers are so cheap nowadays that there's no reason not to have a system devoted to Windows if you deal with people who insist you use it
D
----
There's even - of all things! - a Smooth Jazz song title:
Did I save?
Curiously enough, this tune has no words. Bouncy and cheerful, which doesn't quite describe my mood when Word crashes on me.
D
----
I use HTML myself - but since I use emacs HTML mode and auto-fill mode, I don't have to press enter after 80 characters, either.
I've never lost a single byte in over 20 years of using Emacs and Emacs clones (Epsilon, MicroEMACS, joe) on a daily basis to do editing. Word's record is many fewer characters typed, disasterously more bytes lost.
D
----
Judith Lewis strikes me as a fine and intelligent woman, but I think she's missed the mark on the cultural aspects of computing.
- ------------------------------------
3 3.shtml and see what all the fuss is about.
My soul rebels against the idea that if you are an American, you must eat at McDonald's, watch trash TV shows, and use Microsoft Windows. To me, if you do those things, you are supporting mediocrity and low quality; you are giving your money - which is another way of saying your votes and support - to institutions that quite deliberately produce bad products.
You see, the excuse producers of terrible things give is that it's what the customer wants; customers want lousy hamburgers and cardboard chicken nuggets, so that's what they get; customers want Windows, in all its glitzy, crashy glory, so that's what they get.
If you don't want a computer that crashes all the time, that loses your work, that drops it on the floor so you never see it again, you want something other than Windows.
In a word, you want Linux.
And, incidentally, not only can StarOffice for Windows read and write Office 97 files, it can even put that little squiggly line under the misspelled words you like so much. Add the KDE desktop environment, and you have something that looks a lot like Windows, is as easy to use as Windows, but - as a nice bonus - is fast and reliable. Give it a shot. http://www.stardivision.com/ and http://www.kde.org/ give details.
David H Dennis
Marina del Rey, California
david@amazing.com
(310) 827-7153
-----------------------------------------------
PS to Judith [not for publication]: My sympathies. Your article has been slashdotted. If nobody's pointed you to it yet, read
http://www.slashdot.org/articles/99/03/05/07582
Best
D
----
I recommended StarOffice to her in my letter to the Weekly mainly because she likes the squiggles when spelling errors come up in Word. But she's right; it is frustratingly bloated, but any modern computer should be able to handle it just fine. I would think, anyway.
I just got a demo of Applixware, and it certainly is a lot faster and less bloated than StarOffice; maybe I'll send them some money for the full version.
Now, if someone, somewhere, would only do something about our hideous fonts, I'd be happy.
D
----
I think the guy is right.. For the average user (he is above average) the reason not to stick with Linux is exactly Word..
;-) are not the majority...
:)
Computers have received their name from the word Compute, but nowadays they are mostly used by curly women in small cubicles for writing useless reports...
Unfortunately guys like us/you (I'm just learning
The only difference between him and me, is that he does not know what Star Office is..
s/guy/girl/
Ipologize.. But I barely made it out of the tree this morning -- too much bananas last night..
the monkey
Spell it right!
Even the great plagarist, Noah Webster, spells it with an "e"...or is this some new variant of the American (tee hee) language you are now employing?
Buzz Lightyear
She should use StarOffice. It kicks ass, plus it has filters for MS Word 95 and 97, so she can shut up about document portability.
:)
Stupid pop-culture airhead.
Zonker Harris "There is not, nor ought there be, any food more exalted on the face of god's grey earth, than that
I talk the talk, I walk the walk. I push Linux hard at work - I must be the biggest anti-M$ fanatic at work (which I shall be leaving in exactly two weeks). I do use Linux at work (Debian 2.0), but at the end of the day I come home to my Win95 box. Sure, I have a FreeBSD 2.1 server and a Mac Classic (in my bedroom, my Write Now 3.0 retreat) but at the end of the day I fire up my trusty P166 with Windows 95 and spend most of my time using it. Why is it so? I guess, the software I primarily use for work, ArcView GIS, that which the monthly deposit into my bank account depends on runs on Windows. Sure, there are versions for Sun and DEC boxes but I am hardly able to afford those. And over time, my peecee has become more than an operating system with its many technical failings - there's a lot of me here. There's a picture of an ex-girlfriend that's my background, there's the directory with all my pithy love letters and self-exploration crud. There's the directory with my Java musings. Over here are my favourite MIDI files played through the Yamaha XG synthesizer.
Yeah, time for a clean break. No, I don't love Windows. I don't even like it. As a matter of fact I hate it for the badly engineered piece of rubbish that it is (I am a systems analyst by trade and a hacker by background - homebrewed a Nat Semi Series 32000 sound and light machine years back). But there is a momentum to these things. There's the emotional baggage, the directories and mail spools full of momentos.
One thing I find weird about the author's sentiment is that he finds more friends amongst the Windows community. This is bizarre. Most Windows users don't care for the technology, the computing experience. They aren't passionate. For them, computing is swapping pirated games and buying the latest motherboard and 3D card. This is very, very sad. Uncritical acceptance of the Microsoft party line. They will guide your future. The truest believers I have found, those passionate about their computing experience, those who value _deep_ quality in software as opposed to superficial user interfaces. I have found those in the Linux/Java community.
What the fuck am I doing here? I love you, Cherie. I'm sure I can port your JPEG to Gnome...
-t.
All a MCSE "qualifies" you for is to know how to "rebuild" a system i.e. format the hard disk and sit there with a bunch of CDROMs and reinstall everything. At least, this is what I have gathered so-called MCSE professionals do. On a number of occasions I have had problems with NT4.0 and the company ends up paying $100/hr for some clown to come in to format my hard disk and reinstall NT.
Yeah, I probably could do better but "system administration" is what I leave to the sysadmin in deference to his self-esteem. A programmer like myself should not need to soil his hands on such grubby affairs.
-t.
People use microsloth because they are computer literate and afraid of anything different. This is why Microsoft has a monopoly. Not because there are not better competing products on the market, but because of ignorant consumers. They all want to buy what everyone else has.
People use microsloth because they are computer illiterate and afraid of anything different.
Sorry.
I should use the preview button.
Thanks for the off-topic tirade in response to the orignal tirade. The point the original poster was trying to make was that we needn't put up with bad software or propriety formats. People don't have to use M$ software to communicate. To assume there aren't is ignorant. While not elegantly phrased, I think this a good point.
Who uses Unix anymore? Use Windows like the rest of the world. :-) We should just all standardize on a "Common" system and make that Windows for simplicity. -- or so Microsoft says
I must say, I do respect her for her opinion. Most people try to outsmart Linux people for the 'technical superiority', but she simply states that she likes the look & feel of Windows better.
I do respect that opinion - (more or less) the only way to make people like her to use Linux is to make Linux look and feel like Windows.
I for one wouldn't want to see that - being a Linux hacker for 4+ years, I like the way Linux works. If I wanted Windows, I'd use Windows. (well, I do, but only at work).
Of course we should all demonstrate Linux to everyone we know, but afterwards - please do respect the people that say that they want Windows because, well, they like it. Pressing hard will only make us look like fanatics and will only damage our case. And fanatics can be front page stuff, but usually not for anything good.
Finally, for those of you people out there who are forced to use Windows, but would like a whiff of UNIX, here's a link for you (vi for Windows!)
vi for Windows
"History keeps repeating itself - it has to - nobody ever listens!" (thanks to Alan Cox for this quote)
Q: How does a Unix guru have sex? A: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;umount;sleep
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It really is unfortunate that you need to run Word to generate this stuff. Do you think there will ever be a free program that can generate line noise this elegantly?
Judith Lewis says that she uses Windows just to use Word. She uses a computer just (I assume predominantly) for word processing? Uh - I guess that, when I think about it, my job is about 5% programming these days and about 95% documenting. So I do too.
After 9 hrs a day at my terminal, I'm not in a mood to go home and play games - I'm getting too old for Doom and never bothered with Unreal and my time is spent enjoyably with my lover doing things that people do.
So just what was it for that I spent that $3k 8 years ago? Upgrade headaches?
Joe
I often write HTML when I have to communicate with Windoze users. If not, I write LaTeX. LaTeX is small, portable to all (to me known) U*N*X clones and VMS. Anyway, how do you write a swedish text in ASCII? Nearly every sentence in swedish contains a word containing one of the characters å, ä or ö (Don't know if you are able to view them correctly, anyway, its an a witha rng over, an a with two dots over and finnaly, an o with two dots over).
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
How many of you remember back when M$ only had BASIC and DOS? They targeted applications, realizing that was the means of establishing their lock on the desktop. They took on a product named WordPerfect, holder of the lion's share of the word processing market. They displaced WordPerfect through fierce competition in conjunction with the ability of Word to mimic WordPerfect. It read the competition's files, it provided their metaphors and keystrokes. Gradually, they succeeded--millions of WordPerfect users endured another learning curve and now are Word users.
Points:
On the matter of culture, I am in agreement with the author. Here's a poll: Degree of Familiarity /Amount of Use of Word. I expect we're all facile with it and most of us use it daily (and hate being forced to). I keep M$ products on my family PC because my wife and kids need to be able to move within the culture. Changing the culture will take years, but it is possible, and even necessary.
*All a MCSE "qualifies" you for is to know how to "rebuild" a system i.e. format the hard disk and sit there with a bunch of CDROMs and reinstall
everything. At least, this is what I have gathered so-called MCSE professionals do. *
It's not as simple as that - NT, Exchange, IIS, Proxy Server, etc. are riddled with Service Pack interdependencies. Things like you have to have Service Pack 3 to install RRAS, but if you install that Proxy Server dies unless you apply the patch which is included with SP4, which kills several
third party apps like PCAnywhere unless you download THEIR patches, and then those patches only fix things up part of the time unless you reinstall the TCP/IP service, etc. etc. etc. Don't knock your good MCSE, he's been burned many times by the vagaries of NT and if he's still sane and functional he's both intelligent and tough.
Most decent NT engineers I know also have Linux familiarity and would install Linux for internet services every time given a choice. Actually the resource greed and lack of inter-app compatibility of NT usually means installing a File Print Server, Exchange Server, IIS Server and Proxy Server all as separate boxes, which a single Linux box will handle comfortably.
Unfortunately those of us that work in the real world are often faced with these sort of silk-purse-out-of-sows-ear scenarios, which those of you still at school are so far able to avoid.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
*This has been a day in the life of a Windows Gamer. YMMV *
Sounds a lot like the lost weekend I spent trying to get the PCMCIA modem cards on my laptop working with Linux (the NetComm Card56 works with the serial driver, but CardManager doesn't detect it every time and has problems loading and unloading the driver, and the Xircom Realport don't work at all). Forgive me if I feel my time will be better spent doing things other than learning all about PCMCIA and contributing to the Linux/Xircom PCMCIA driver project.
Windows is crappy. But Linux still has some maturing to do.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
*Regardless of her obviously staggering intellect*
Chill. At least this woman had the nous and intellectual curiousity to give Linux a shot. She managed to write a few scripts, which is more than many do or are capable of.
The fact that she, as a non Unix weenie, gave it her best shot and decided it was not for her, says more about the shortcomings of Linux than any shortcomings she may have.
She doesn't like Linux, so SHE's at fault? Ever hear of Procrustes?
I like Linux. I'm using it for this. But I know why some people don't and respect their opinions. If you meet constructive criticism with hostility and refuse to see weaknesses, you'll never be able to make the product stronger.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
I started coming to slashdot about 6 months ago because it was the only place that I could hear the "other side" comment about Linux without the truth being filtered through the mainstream press.
But the personal BIGOTRY that goes on here is starting to tax a lot of people's patience.
We all know that MS is a big, mean ole company that has foisted haphazard bloatware on the public. Fine. We know this.
What the world could do with a lot less of are the screaming Linux KKK that is out to denigrate everyone who uses a Microsoft product or admits that it is easier to "go with flow" than to fight their employer, their peers (the attachment sending ones), and the predominant consumer experience.
Face it: Most folks who are using MS products do so for reasons other than passion, and aren't sure why Linux folks go screaming-yellow-zonkers over what they view as an APPLIANCE. Sure, it crashes. WE know that the average consumer is jaded to this unnecessarily. But look at the alternative: To get a stable system, they would need to unlearn their limited knowledge about computers and then learn a HUGE amount about an Operating System that doesn't look, act or feel like anything they've ever known. Are you surprised that the common user (if they even know what Linux is) would consider switching Operating Systems to be a hassle that wasn't worth the benefit? How do you think flaming them is going to change their mind?
Essentially, the Linux community makes every migration and attitude change harder the more it screams and shouts insults at users of another OS. The most public Linux advocates seem to have the manners and grace of a spoiled, tantrum throwing CHILD. The Linux claim of "communal computing" has already started to wear thin for Windows users who ask a question on Usenet or listserv and get flamed into a pile of ashes by Linux bigots who burn down the people they claim they are trying to win over.
This behavior is a conundrum for radicals: It takes a loud voice to get a milling crowd's attention, but that same loud voice is ignored as "just another nutcase" if it doesn't speak reasonably once it has the crowd's attention.
The Open Source cause has a double-pronged PR problem. One, the most visible Linux & OSS proponants don't talk, discuss or debate: they rage like angry little Klansmen. Second, people in computing are very gifted intellectually, but at the cost of our social skills. Face it: we like to be left alone with the bit-box because in all of it's complexity, it seems simpler to deal with than other people.
The grandest conundrum in this sorry evaluation is that Linus Torvalds doesn't fit into the public image that the Linux & OSS bigots are defining for themselves. When the average IT person is asked if they know anyone who really likes Linux, the picture they get isn't someone who is happily trying to push a good idea. They envision someone like ESR: vastly brilliant but completely devoid of social skills. In other words, the prototypical OSS or Linux bigot.
I'll close with this analogy of changing people's mind for their own good:
Many years ago in Tanzania, two white missionary women that had just come to the country saw the way that the native woman would gather a handful of rushes and then stoop over to sweep out their huts. This constant bending did these native women significant harm and the older women bore the results in poor posture and limited mobility.
Both of the missionary women felt obligated to improve the lot of these native women and as each prepared to go to their assigned villages, they agreed to make their best effort to change this unnecessary and injurious habit.
About two years later, they met again at a conference in the capital. They compared their experiences.
"Oh, those stubborn woman!" the first one seethed. "I showed them how to tie the rushes in a bundle to a stick and that way they could stand up properly to clean. But they ignored me! They told me I was welcome to clean my house in my way, and they would clean their in their way. Not one of them has changed. They are completely set in their ways."
The second missionary mulled the first's story for a moment and then said, "Perhaps they are stubborn because it is all they know and it is easier to deal with the hardships you know than to risk changing then for hardships you don't know. Besides, by telling them that your way was better, you implied that they were fools for not being like you."
"What do you mean?" inquired the first, sharply.
"Well", said the second lady, "I did not tell them that using a stick would be better or that it would be good for them. I just did it myself. And when they saw that I stood upright without pain, they slowly and surely tried it themselves. And though standing up straight pained them at first, some of the older women who have been stooping over for years are feeling better."
Let him hear it who may...
flames > dev/null
Let me clarify:
As you pointed out, my comments were directed both to the tone and the content of the original post. I understood what the poster's point.
Also, my comments were hardly off topic. The subject of the article being discussed is why people use or don't use Linux.
Thanks for your comments.
flames > dev/null
My humble thanks.
As you say, despite being the self appointed harbingers of "choice" and "freedom", Linux folks have walked differently than they have talked. I need only remind readers of last week's discussion of the Virtual Faith review by Katz: The slash and burn vitriol against anyone stating (not evangelizing) a religious faith was very telling.
Perhaps all this passion is good for something, but the wholesale dismisses and marginalization of those you don't agree with isn't one of them. One might go so far as to say that when we scream FUD about MS, we have adopted their tactics and become what we despise.
Life is funny like that.
flames > dev/null
Reconsider your evaluation. Perhaps M$ does make some things unnecessarily difficult, but Linux can hardly be said to be an improvement on the usability scale. Great for geeks, but Joe Six-pack is having a hard time adjusting.
Background: I a former Windows 95 Support Engineer. BELIEVE ME, I know where you're coming from. The horrors I had to bail people out of were nasty, and full 50% of them were MS's fault.
But the 50% were just plain old user errors, mistakes or thrashing. (What we came affectionately to refer to as "smacking a tar-baby in the mouth. Reference: Song of the South)
These are the folks that either can't be taught or are embarrassed enough about their lack of knowledge that they fight you the whole way.
My wife is a Registrar for a educator's technical training center. Teachers come in and are taught basic computing skills like email. Not surprisingly, a good portion don't want to be there and don't want to learn.
This isn't just teachers; it is society at large. The sheer volume of information and skills that we need to have to survive today boggles the mind. Our grandparents are overwhelmed by it, and our parents struggle with what the younger generation is picking up much faster than they.
I am beginning to wonder how we, as a society, are going to deal with information overload.
flames > dev/null
I have recently had the most amusing experience with Word. A guy at work comes to me with a document that he cannot load into his version of Word, and when he tries to load it to an older version the thing actually crashed ! So I try reading the file with StarOffice. Bingo. No problem.
Sorry I don't recall the version numbers.
Dear Judith,
I'd like to apologize for all the mysogynist dorks in this otherwise enlightened community who feel the need to bring up your gender as if it mattered and then denigrate you as if your gender had anything to do with intelligence or courage. I hope these immature yutzes come out of their hovels some day and learn as much about intelligent, courageous women like Clara Barton, Jane Addams, and Maya Angleou (to name a very few) as they have about yacc and gcc.
You don't have to be an antisocial dweeb with blinders on to be a good hacker. Why don't we prove it?
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
and the ones with the words don't know too w
Okay, you asked for it.
;)
[flame]
YOU FUCKING RETARD LOSER!!! REAL hackers do NOT call themselves 'h4x0rs', much less '3l33t'!!!!! It's because of those idiots and people like YOU that Micro$loth rules the FUCKING WORLD!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!
[massacre weapon="old_pdp11_box_to_the_head"]
[/flame]
Satisfied?
Peace,
Rafael "No epithet" Kaufmann
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
They also do not contain any character or paragraph formating.
Everybody Lies. But it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
I see your point here and I agree.
But not all comp users were born with a complete knowledge of every imaginable *nix system. Newbies, in general, use Microsoft stuff. We were all newbies once. (I consider myself a power user, but the real "3l337 h4x0rs" would likely still say to me, "y0u c1u313ss LUS3R!!"...hoo boy, flames, here I come.) It's an inescapable, and somewhat painful, part of many a Linux afficianado's past: Most of us had to start with something.
Maybe, then, in this context, we can euphemically compare Microsoft to toilet training, rather than the usual comparison to the products thereof.
LOL! I was actually comparing Microsoft to the PRODUCTS of toilet training...in other words, what do you FIND in the toilet?
;]
But, we don't need that kind of crap here, eh?
(Ha! I just made ANOTHER funny!)
Funny, but in all the copies of vi that I've used, the arrow keys work just fine.*
:-)
I do realize that you're not supposed to use them to be 100% hardcore.
"Linux sucks because it doesn't have Word?" What is this guy, a satisfied Word customer since version 1.0? Of all the invalid lame excuses to not use Linux... yeesh. I don't see what this guy needs to do with Word that's so special that he can't do with WordPerfect or Applixware or StarOffice... produce documents in Word 97 format maybe because his boss requires it? There is such a thing as "Save As", you know, where you can specify the file format to save in... gee... what a concept! I don't think this guy has even bothered to try the word processors available on Linux.
If he were talking about a spreadsheet I might take him more seriously, but even then IIRC Applixware has one and StarOffice might too.
Oh, did I mention that all these apps are much cheaper than Word?
I'd say try Applixware... you might get lucky and find it in your local Best Buy!!
*vi in a dtterm on Solaris won't let you go past the end of a line to insert, and that's a problem (a strong hint to use dtpad?)
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
American English? Now there's an oxymoron.
Life sucks but death doesn't put out at all....
I stole it immediately.
author caught in sadness of something-or-other
Just another perl hacker in Bangkok
actually, there is such a thing as "american english." you can even by a style book for it, although it's pretty useless unless you're a journalist.
count yourself among the lucky ones. i'm forced into using windoze even for my cs classes cause we're learning java with visual j++ on NiceTry boxes.
btw, if anyone knows of a really good robust ide for java that runs in linux i will happily abandon the p75 i have running windows in the corner.
emacs doesn't count =).
and now because of all this sushi talk I have to go to one of the japanese places across the river for dinner.
thanks.
but you're suprised to find out it's much more tender and palatable than the cooked stuff.
1.
if america was cut up into 20 different countries with most having their own language, americans would generally speak more than one language.
2.
no matter what language you pick, there are many naitive speakers who don't use it properly.
Not to mention 'tab'.
--C
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Ms Lewis can download StarOffice from startdivision.com. It's a full fledged application suite that has ms word filters.
PS: Window users don't have more friends.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Plus it's still pretty raw. =)
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
So... never mind.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Even a spell checker doesn't solve all your problems, as this classic poem demonstrates:
Owed Two the Spell Checker
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
My Finn/Swede grandparents told stories of curing lutefisk. For the best flavor, they said it was best to leave the frozen slab of fish out on a particularly chilly evening (only -20F or colder qualifies) let the dog pee on it and soak it in lye. Mmmm-mmmm good.
I think as the popularity of Linux continues to
grow, so will the amount of FUD. No big surprise.
I'm one of a handful of Linux users in our company and I've begun a push to get people to distribute documentation in PDF format instead of Word (or any application specific for that matter). It's actually been partially successful - about half the stuff I get is now PDF. I also posted the UNIX and NT versions of Ghostscript on my internal web page. Granted, it doesn't work if the end user has to be able to edit the document, but in reality this is the case only a few percent of the time.
It's actually pretty simple. You probably already have what you need: Ghostscript 5.1 or higher. If you have a distro version of Ghostscript (3.x or whatever) you will have to download at least 5.1. Once it's installed, create a postscript file with your application and use the ps2pdf command to generate a pdf file.
One tip: Try to stick to standard ghostscript fonts in your document (times, helvetica, courier). Other fonts go into the pdf file as bitmaps which are fine when printed but don't look so great on the screen. BTW, this works in NT too - you don't have to buy Acrobat.
I'm sure there's a MIDI file for the background music out there somewhere.
/. To my delight, I was not offended at all. As I said to one respectful correspondent, three years ago when I wrote about Linux (in a piece called "The Very PC PC," still up on the Leary website -- http://leary.com/news/feature/Linux.html), I heard not a peep from anyone at all. Now I've inspired a flame war. Hooray for us all. Open source is the future.
Look, to clear up a few misconceptions:
1. I am a woman.
2. I do not knit. At least, not anymore. But I do garden and make soup.
3. I am a very good speller, except for those two words I mentioned in my piece.
4. I love Linux. Hear me, one and all. I love love love love love Linux. Ask anyone who knows me. Of course, all those friends of mine will probably say "Oh yeah, she likes her Lie-nucks box" with a long I, and then you'll all seize upon them like screaming harpies and I'll have to explain why I would associate with such disassociated gearheads. I'd be ostracized. So, nevermind. Don't talk to any of my friends.
5. This morning, I came in to find several messages in my mailbox (Eudora running on Windows, if you must know, which I use with utmost reluctance while I wait for my new system to arrive) warning me that people were saying horrible things about me on
Carry on.
Oh, by the way, StarOffice, last I tried it, was a lumbering giant way too cumbersome for any system I run. But I tried WP 8 in San Jose yesterday and liked it fine. Perhaps there's hope. Even for me.
And I'm going out for sushi tonight to celebrate the "Linux is Sushi" analogy.
Namaste,
Judith
"One of the signs of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important." -Bertrand Ru