As an Ubuntu user I would like to bring the following data point to your attention: - I use Linux since '95. - I work full-time producing FOSS licensed code; - if it wasn't for Ubuntu, I would be running OSX.
... baby names. I don't mean shit like Trayvon or Jamal or Jerome. Or even stripper names like Destiny. I mean shit like Vagina or Chlamydia or Orangina.
In Brazil people were free to give any name they wanted to their child. AFAIK After one particularly bad case (i.e. a boy called "Um Dois Tres de Oliveria Quatro", which reads as Portuguese for "1 2 3 de Oliveira 4"), a law was placed that the public official making the child's registry may refuse a name if it believes it will expose the child to embarrassment or ridicule later. (I honestly do not know if the story associating this law with this one name is correct, but this name is real and so is the law restricting embarrassing names).
Sounds to me like a very good compromise between naming freedom and keeping crazy people from causing damage to their children. Much better than official lists of acceptable names that many European countries still have.
I maintain my parents computers for some years already. They are in their mid 60s. They are using Ubuntu with Gnome (2) for about 5 years.
There were some road blocking bugs along the years but they were all fixed (as far as we are concerned). All I can say is that now "it mostly works". Like all normal people, they need less bugs, less suprises and better/safer applications.
Now that I see Unity coming from one side and Gnome3 from the other, with all their brand new usability bugs ("oh install a plugin/extension to fix that..."), I did the only sane thing I could: bought them 1 Ipad. I believe that they will try it, learn it and use it more than either the desktop or laptop. If there is need, I'll buy another iPad so that each of my parents has one.
IOS has problems but I believe that there is no alternative today that matches its level of end-to-end support and quality.
Such a beautiful and concise description of one of the greatest problems in the Linux desktop.
Gnome had no direction because it had arrived where it aimed: functional desktop that more or less corresponded to people's expectations and that let you run applications without getting in the way. Perhaps it was not sexy, but the Linux ceased being cool and sexy at some point in the last 10 years. OS X raised the desktop standards by delivering a fully working sane desktop pre-loaded with loads of mature and well executed applications. Linux has "pre-loaded" applications (through apt/yum) but not at the same quality level.
Adapt it for tablets and phones? Who on Earth would prefer a half baked mobile interface without any decent applications (and no expectation of API stability) over Android with its sane stable API and thousands apps? Ans: even less people than those running a Linux Desktop right now.
> After the fad is over, what's remain of Harry Porter?
Harry Potter books were/are so popular that they are seen as tools to increase literacy. It is not by chance that the first volume was translated into all sorts of minority or even dead languages (latin, old greek etc), people figured it out that it would be a good way to get folks reading those languages again.
If the balance right now is Google's superior search vs. Amazon's superior convenience/prime shipping, I think that still gives the advantage to Amazon.
Google's trouble is that Amazon is a synonym of online shopping for most (non-digital) items people will ever buy online. Add to that 2 things: prime shipping and the good experience most people have when something goes wrong with an order with Amazon.
Really, how again is Google's reputation standing helping me when I buy from a seller I found using Google?
Because he is an Apple fan-boy and turned off any and all technology knowledge of his decision process because of the emotional assurance he got from the Apple brand?
Yeah, because Apple doesn't tell you to keep backups using Time Machine. Oh, no, wait - they do. Apple 1 - BlackCreek 0
Because he is an Apple fan-boy and turned off any and all technology knowledge of his decision process because of the emotional assurance he got from the Apple brand?
So by your logic, all Windows and Linux users keep backups then? That will really help me next time my parents' computer messes up, now that I know that they definitely keep backups because they don't have a Mac.
By my logic I expect that anyone that makes a living writing about technology at a professional venue such as Wired as senior writer is: 1. well informed about the need and value of backups; 2. capable of making sure the data is actually backed up to a safe place.
Quit being such a dork, I said this one guy is fan-boy and that that made/he/ turn off his very well informed brain about how he was handling his data, not that any and everyone that buys Apple is a fan-boy, or is as well informed as he is, or makes the same mistakes he did. The generalization is yours only.
Does any of your parents is a senior writer at Wired (or something equivalent)?
Because he is an Apple fan-boy and turned off any and all technology knowledge of his decision process because of the emotional assurance he got from the Apple brand?
I've never heard of anyone having more than one card from the same issuer before. Usually, a bank won't offer you a second card if you already have one with them. Why do you have multiple cards from the same bank?
Because some people are married and have one for their own account and another for the joint account with their partner?
In other words: "If people can't be bothered to publish their stuff in a format that I can pirate I don't read their books."sound like you aren't much of a loss as a customer. All it takes to ruin a small indie publisher is one guy like you cracking their kindle books and putting their entire line on bittorrent. Where is the motivation to go digital?
No, those are your words stupid AC. Please re-read (with your brain in working mode):
>> Trouble is, there is so much (good) stuff to read that I one of the ways I select what to read is "is it available as an e-book?". >> If a writer/publisher can't be bothered to sell their content in the way I want to consume it, I'll just shop elsewhere.
One of the ways "I **select** what to read". If you don't sell it digital, I will just buy some other book. Shop elsewhere, as in 'shop from someone else'. If people can't be bothered to sell digital for the kindle (I don't even bother with Adobe digital editions), I just read something else that is available for the Kindle.
The motivation for a publisher to go digital is to actually be able to sell books to the most avid book readers, who are all migrating or have migrated to e-readers. Publishers not going digital will be out of the market in 5 years or less (assuming you have a platform like the Kindle for the given language, there are only what 5 6 languages with real books for sale at Amazon).
> This may not be an issue for the big names in publishing but it will be the end of many small specialist publishers if they go all digital. These small publishers may actually be better off staying analog since printed books are a pretty good anti piracy defense plus those customers that are really interested in this specialist literature will still buy the paper books.
I read many things that go under 'specialist literature'. Trouble is, there is so much (good) stuff to read that I one of the ways I select what to read is "is it available as an e-book?". If a writer/publisher can't be bothered to sell their content in the way I want to consume it, I'll just shop elsewhere.
Really, books don't make a profit by selling only to those who absolutely ****must**** get it (perhaps with honorable exceptions).
Of course that makes your password exactly as safe as if you had the password itself stored in a protected file, which would mean you'd theoretically never need your security question answers since you would never forget your password. Unless of course you lose the file, in which case... I really hope you keep those files in two different places.
Reasons to add random trash to these recovery questions is that: -- it keeps *you* from actually adding your first pet's name; -- ** it keeps the website from nagging you to add recovery questions ** -- my bank for instance requests a security recovery question to be added, I told them my mother's maiden name was something like "kj63h546*3@"
I do the same as the grand-parent. My passwords are different for every account and are created using (pwgen or apg, I can't never bother to check if one is better than the other). I really don't remember any of my passwords, I only really remember the browser password that protects these, the SSH passphrase and the GPG passphrase to decrypt the password file.
On a side note, I never add my Facebook password to the browser, as that makes it so cumbersome to login to Facebook that I really only login every 3 months for friendship request maintenance.
I am quite thankful for e-readers as they have allowed me to read more books in a more convenient format by solving problems I was experiencing with paper books, namely: storage (I own too many books and carry too many books while traveling) and font size (I have an eagle nose, not eagle eyes).
For all the problems (DRM, bad typesetting) and the perception of (IMO hyperbolic) problems with e-books (oh, Amazon will know which page I am reading -- as if there was not a direct way to turn that off AND as if you couldn't just always have your Kindle with Wifi/Radio turned off), e-books are winning. Much in the same way that digital music won. There are just too many advantages.
The Kindle (or any other e-reader I've seen) can still use loads of improvements in typesetting quality, but just the fact that I can adjust font size and type are real deal breakers for me. Instant dictionary look-up is a God send for those reading in foreign languages, but it can also be improved, dictionary setting should also work per-book, so that I don't need to switch back and forth between language dictionaries all the time. It would also be nice if a new Kindle also did PDF reflow, but I doubt it, Amazon is likely to continue giving it its half-baked support that is just good enough to avoid users from going elsewhere.
People need Word in the same way other people need Emacs or Vim. It is their preferred tool for the job.
Then it's not a matter of "need" at all. If one is willing to give up all of the advantages Linux has over Windows so they can run a particular word processor (which IMO isn't very smart; a word processor is a word processor and there's not much difference between any of them), more power to them.
Well, we could argue that no one actually/needs/ a computer in the first place;-)
The point I was trying to make is that even for applications with perfect compatibility (text files & Emacs/Vim) a user's preferences can be strong, and switching from one to another a rather time consuming thing. Migrating to another Office application (Word/Excel --> whichever is the OpenOffice clone) is just a lot more expensive because you don't have (whether we like it or not) perfect file conversion.
Honestly, a lot of people need Word, because in real life, you don't have any time during your work day to be figuring out conversion problems between Word and OpenOffice.
[...]
For the perspective of an end user that prefers applications X, Y and Z only present in Windows, what kind of advantage does Linux actually offers? It used to offer more stability and security, but honestly I don't see Windows 7 being sensibly behind at these.
> What would possibly make me consider OSX? I assume I am well outside of their target market, but I am willing to consider your answer.
Loads and loads and loads of high quality, polished, high-level applications?
(taking from another post of mine in this thread http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2940345&cid=40457705) Seriously, can you: - edit PDFs in Linux without shelling US$300 for Acrobat? (no, Okular does not edit your PDFs http://armbrust.blogspot.fr/2010/02/do-not-use-okular-to-fill-out-pdf-forms.html) - do basic video editing with a polished application? - high quality photo manipulation (at the level of Adobe Lightroom)? - simple/good program to create a good looking family photo album to send to print? - I have a `nice` photo camera AND a `nice` video camera (bought both when I had a kid). Can the firmware of those be updated with Linux? No. - have your computer actually turn off the fan when not under load? Or after 2 hours of not being under load? (I only have a Lenovo Thinkpad certified for RHEL (i.e. Red Hat Enterprise Linux) running RHEL, the fscking fan *never* turns off. - heck, does *your* laptop suspends reliably? I have a Dell for personal use, and suspend seems to only work on every 3rd Ubuntu release, if you get what I mean (at least the Dell can turn off its fan;-)). - Oh, another one, I am going to buy that Retina MacbookPro that has an HDMI out. I do expect that Audio-out is going to work on HDMI. Never got that to work on Linux.
Notice that I really do not care for Gnome/KDE/etc. I just use Chrome/Firefox and a terminal (and loads of `software development` tools which would be the same on Linux/OSX/Windows). Breakage doesn't really affect me because I am smart enough not to upgrade too soon.
- Decent priced PDF editor for filling in PDF files? No. (sorry, I am not buying Acrobat for that).
If you're talking about filling in PDF forms, Okular (part of KDE) already does that, though it won't do the self-calculating forms (unless it's added that more recently).
Not quite. Okular is merely fooling you into thinking it can do that.
Okular will add some *Okular specific* metadata to PDFs, and will display that as annotations and text, but all of that will **not** be saved as a standard PDF info. So if you send said PDF to your lawyer per email and the lawyer opens it using, say, Adobe Acrobat they comments and filled information will NOT show up.
> But why would one NEED Word? I have yet to see a Word document that Oo wouldn't open easily and render well, despite MS's efforts to thwart them.
People need Word in the same way other people need Emacs or Vim. It is their preferred tool for the job.
> I can't agree; is there a Windows media player that will fetch the lyrics of a playing song and display them? If so I haven't found it.
Honestly, do you really like that? That is somehow a sore point for me because I used to love Amarok, until version 1.3, after that they rewrote everything -in order to include stuff like lyrics search- at IMO detriment of being a good music player. (perhaps it got better... its been years since I last used Amarok...)
When the choice is between open and better, the latter will always win.
#define "better", to me, kde is far more functional than os x, I recognize others don't think the same but they likely aren't using it in a similar fashion as to what I am. Without criteria defined there is no such thing as "better".
I'd say that most users definition of better is to be able to run the applications they want. It has nothing to do with workflow or interfaces. I think what the GP poster was about was not about a desktop's workflow but the whole `does it have the applications that users need/want to use`?
Something that seems lost to all FOSS desktop developers: the actual purpose of the OS + desktop environment is to just run applications. People really don't care about interfaces, or what happens when you type alt-bla. Really. They need Photoshop, Word, Steam, iTunes and they also need the printer/scanner to work when needed.
And just like Emacs won't cut it for VI users (and vice-versa) OpenOffice/Gimp/Etc won't do it.
Decent priced PDF editor for filling in PDF files?
The one I purchased for people in my workplace had Mac, linux and windows versions available at the same price.
Actually I use PDF X-Change through Wine (no affiliation, I am just a happy user). When it works, it works great. Sometimes Wine fails on me and it crashes. I would be ok, if I was filling some silly forms, but when I am filling forms to send to a lawyer, I appreciate NOT being annoyed/distracted by Wine crashes.
As for the other points, as an occasional (but cheapskate) Mac user I can't help to notice that Apple makes it very easy to find things to buy that do the job, even when I'm not actually looking but just want to use Safari. I think that's a major part of the success and popularity. On MS Windows or linux it's a fair bit of googling to find software that might do a task.
I don't think it would be hard to find these for Windows, but I reckon that a working app store with some-even-though-imperfect-malware-filtering makes buying software a lot safer and easier. Pretty much like how I never worried about buying used books from 20 random sellers through Amazon, only one reputable firm gets hold of my credit card number and there is a system in place to prevent wide-spread fraud.
IMHO Most people could care less about a desktop's work flow. If it works in *some way* you learn that and get over it. The reason people have computers is to run programs in it.
For one, loads of people need MS Word. Not OpenOffice (or whatever is the new name for it). My sister (pro-photograph) needs Photoshop, not the fscking Gimp. You can argue they/truly need/ it. But one way or another, why should they run an OS that lacks they prefered applications, when they run one that has?
If Linux doesn't have the programs you need or programs which are `good enough for your needs`, and Windows7 or OSX have them. Linux has great browsers, but great applications are really far and few in between.
Some 10 years ago, the Linux desktop was The Challenger. The first alternative to Microsoft. The cool OS to use for all the cool tech headed people. All people I knew working in academic research in 'hard science' fields used Linux.
That moment is gone.
All the younger cool tech-headed kids I know use Macs. Most people that I know that used Linux in the late 90's early 2000 years have migrated to Mac computers. Actually I can say that with one or two exceptions everyone migrated to Macs.
[...]
Personal annecdote:
Started using Linux in 1995. Worked as a Linux sysadmin when I was a student. Use Android phones and installed OpenWrt in my router (previous one ran Tomato). Own a Linux NAS (Debian based). I have a LWN.net subscription. My work computer runs RHEL. My parents computer (I bought it and maintain it), runs Ubuntu.
When my wife needed a new laptop, I bought her a MacBook Air. Not a chance I would inflict Gnome/KDE/Whatever on her.
I have a kid, little spare time and a fair amount of disposable income.
With the Linux desktop: - Do I have a polished, easy to use, easily discoverable video editor? No. - Polished, high quality photographic manager and processor for Linux (Like say, Adobe Lightroom)? No. - Something easy to use for creating good looking family photo albums for printing? No. - Decent priced PDF editor for filling in PDF files? No. (sorry, I am not buying Acrobat for that). - Does my kick-ass Lenovo work laptop running certified RHEL has the fan on at all times? Yes.
If I went out of my way to find sort-of-good-enough alternatives for these things, could I do it? Probably.
Do I want to spend my time doing that? No.
The question on my mind right now, is which configuration of the new Retina MacBook Pro to order.
> I would like to see how that sub-$500 laptop is doing after 4 years...my bet is you'd probably need to retrieve it from a landfill first.
Get real.
I have a 7 yr old *consumer* Dell laptop, it does the job for email, web browsing, and ssh.
Look, I have no trouble with people being happy buying 'brand name' whatever. Unless you get a faulty item, if you take minimum care of your Apple / Thinkpad laptop, it will probably last you many years. Just don't delude yourself thinking that the same is also not true of a, say, consumer-level Dell laptop.
Slashdot Mirror
As an Ubuntu user I would like to bring the following data point to your attention:
- I use Linux since '95.
- I work full-time producing FOSS licensed code;
- if it wasn't for Ubuntu, I would be running OSX.
Have a nice day,
... baby names. I don't mean shit like Trayvon or Jamal or Jerome. Or even stripper names like Destiny. I mean shit like Vagina or Chlamydia or Orangina.
In Brazil people were free to give any name they wanted to their child. AFAIK After one particularly bad case (i.e. a boy called "Um Dois Tres de Oliveria Quatro", which reads as Portuguese for "1 2 3 de Oliveira 4"), a law was placed that the public official making the child's registry may refuse a name if it believes it will expose the child to embarrassment or ridicule later. (I honestly do not know if the story associating this law with this one name is correct, but this name is real and so is the law restricting embarrassing names).
Sounds to me like a very good compromise between naming freedom and keeping crazy people from causing damage to their children. Much better than official lists of acceptable names that many European countries still have.
I maintain my parents computers for some years already. They are in their mid 60s. They are using Ubuntu with Gnome (2) for about 5 years.
There were some road blocking bugs along the years but they were all fixed (as far as we are concerned). All I can say is that now "it mostly works". Like all normal people, they need less bugs, less suprises and better/safer applications.
Now that I see Unity coming from one side and Gnome3 from the other, with all their brand new usability bugs ("oh install a plugin/extension to fix that..."), I did the only sane thing I could: bought them 1 Ipad. I believe that they will try it, learn it and use it more than either the desktop or laptop. If there is need, I'll buy another iPad so that each of my parents has one.
IOS has problems but I believe that there is no alternative today that matches its level of end-to-end support and quality.
http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
Such a beautiful and concise description of one of the greatest problems in the Linux desktop.
Gnome had no direction because it had arrived where it aimed: functional desktop that more or less corresponded to people's expectations and that let you run applications without getting in the way. Perhaps it was not sexy, but the Linux ceased being cool and sexy at some point in the last 10 years. OS X raised the desktop standards by delivering a fully working sane desktop pre-loaded with loads of mature and well executed applications. Linux has "pre-loaded" applications (through apt/yum) but not at the same quality level.
Adapt it for tablets and phones? Who on Earth would prefer a half baked mobile interface without any decent applications (and no expectation of API stability) over Android with its sane stable API and thousands apps? Ans: even less people than those running a Linux Desktop right now.
> After the fad is over, what's remain of Harry Porter?
Harry Potter books were/are so popular that they are seen as tools to increase literacy. It is not by chance that the first volume was translated into all sorts of minority or even dead languages (latin, old greek etc), people figured it out that it would be a good way to get folks reading those languages again.
http://www.mezzoguild.com/2011/11/30/learning-languages-from-harry-potter/
I actually used the printed version of HPotter 1 together with its audio book when starting to study French.
If the balance right now is Google's superior search vs. Amazon's superior convenience/prime shipping, I think that still gives the advantage to Amazon.
Google's trouble is that Amazon is a synonym of online shopping for most (non-digital) items people will ever buy online. Add to that 2 things: prime shipping and the good experience most people have when something goes wrong with an order with Amazon.
Really, how again is Google's reputation standing helping me when I buy from a seller I found using Google?
Why didn't he keep backups?
Because he is an Apple fan-boy and turned off any and all technology knowledge of his decision process because of the emotional assurance he got from the Apple brand?
Yeah, because Apple doesn't tell you to keep backups using Time Machine. Oh, no, wait - they do. Apple 1 - BlackCreek 0
Because your reading comprehension sucks?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3030691&cid=40905063
Why didn't he keep backups?
Because he is an Apple fan-boy and turned off any and all technology knowledge of his decision process because of the emotional assurance he got from the Apple brand?
So by your logic, all Windows and Linux users keep backups then? That will really help me next time my parents' computer messes up, now that I know that they definitely keep backups because they don't have a Mac.
By my logic I expect that anyone that makes a living writing about technology at a professional venue such as Wired as senior writer is: 1. well informed about the need and value of backups; 2. capable of making sure the data is actually backed up to a safe place.
Quit being such a dork, I said this one guy is fan-boy and that that made /he/ turn off his very well informed brain about how he was handling his data, not that any and everyone that buys Apple is a fan-boy, or is as well informed as he is, or makes the same mistakes he did. The generalization is yours only.
Does any of your parents is a senior writer at Wired (or something equivalent)?
Why didn't he keep backups?
Because he is an Apple fan-boy and turned off any and all technology knowledge of his decision process because of the emotional assurance he got from the Apple brand?
I've never heard of anyone having more than one card from the same issuer before. Usually, a bank won't offer you a second card if you already have one with them. Why do you have multiple cards from the same bank?
Because some people are married and have one for their own account and another for the joint account with their partner?
In other words: "If people can't be bothered to publish their stuff in a format that I can pirate I don't read their books."sound like you aren't much of a loss as a customer. All it takes to ruin a small indie publisher is one guy like you cracking their kindle books and putting their entire line on bittorrent. Where is the motivation to go digital?
No, those are your words stupid AC. Please re-read (with your brain in working mode):
>> Trouble is, there is so much (good) stuff to read that I one of the ways I select what to read is "is it available as an e-book?".
>> If a writer/publisher can't be bothered to sell their content in the way I want to consume it, I'll just shop elsewhere.
One of the ways "I **select** what to read". If you don't sell it digital, I will just buy some other book. Shop elsewhere, as in 'shop from someone else'.
If people can't be bothered to sell digital for the kindle (I don't even bother with Adobe digital editions), I just read something else that is available for the Kindle.
The motivation for a publisher to go digital is to actually be able to sell books to the most avid book readers, who are all migrating or have migrated to e-readers. Publishers not going digital will be out of the market in 5 years or less (assuming you have a platform like the Kindle for the given language, there are only what 5 6 languages with real books for sale at Amazon).
> This may not be an issue for the big names in publishing but it will be the end of many small specialist publishers if they go all digital. These small publishers may actually be better off staying analog since printed books are a pretty good anti piracy defense plus those customers that are really interested in this specialist literature will still buy the paper books.
I read many things that go under 'specialist literature'. Trouble is, there is so much (good) stuff to read that I one of the ways I select what to read is "is it available as an e-book?". If a writer/publisher can't be bothered to sell their content in the way I want to consume it, I'll just shop elsewhere.
Really, books don't make a profit by selling only to those who absolutely ****must**** get it (perhaps with honorable exceptions).
Of course that makes your password exactly as safe as if you had the password itself stored in a protected file, which would mean you'd theoretically never need your security question answers since you would never forget your password. Unless of course you lose the file, in which case... I really hope you keep those files in two different places.
Reasons to add random trash to these recovery questions is that:
-- it keeps *you* from actually adding your first pet's name;
-- ** it keeps the website from nagging you to add recovery questions **
-- my bank for instance requests a security recovery question to be added, I told them my mother's maiden name was something like "kj63h546*3@"
I do the same as the grand-parent. My passwords are different for every account and are created using (pwgen or apg, I can't never bother to check if one is better than the other). I really don't remember any of my passwords, I only really remember the browser password that protects these, the SSH passphrase and the GPG passphrase to decrypt the password file.
On a side note, I never add my Facebook password to the browser, as that makes it so cumbersome to login to Facebook that I really only login every 3 months for friendship request maintenance.
I am quite thankful for e-readers as they have allowed me to read more books in a more convenient format by solving problems I was experiencing with paper books, namely: storage (I own too many books and carry too many books while traveling) and font size (I have an eagle nose, not eagle eyes).
For all the problems (DRM, bad typesetting) and the perception of (IMO hyperbolic) problems with e-books (oh, Amazon will know which page I am reading -- as if there was not a direct way to turn that off AND as if you couldn't just always have your Kindle with Wifi/Radio turned off), e-books are winning. Much in the same way that digital music won. There are just too many advantages.
The Kindle (or any other e-reader I've seen) can still use loads of improvements in typesetting quality, but just the fact that I can adjust font size and type are real deal breakers for me. Instant dictionary look-up is a God send for those reading in foreign languages, but it can also be improved, dictionary setting should also work per-book, so that I don't need to switch back and forth between language dictionaries all the time. It would also be nice if a new Kindle also did PDF reflow, but I doubt it, Amazon is likely to continue giving it its half-baked support that is just good enough to avoid users from going elsewhere.
The latest Spiderman movie was recorded using Epic Red cameras
http://www.techradar.com/news/photography-video-capture/red-epic-cam-footage-of-amazing-spider-man-best-ever-964445
People need Word in the same way other people need Emacs or Vim. It is their preferred tool for the job.
Then it's not a matter of "need" at all. If one is willing to give up all of the advantages Linux has over Windows so they can run a particular word processor (which IMO isn't very smart; a word processor is a word processor and there's not much difference between any of them), more power to them.
Well, we could argue that no one actually /needs/ a computer in the first place ;-)
The point I was trying to make is that even for applications with perfect compatibility (text files & Emacs/Vim) a user's preferences can be strong, and switching from one to another a rather time consuming thing. Migrating to another Office application (Word/Excel --> whichever is the OpenOffice clone) is just a lot more expensive because you don't have (whether we like it or not) perfect file conversion.
Honestly, a lot of people need Word, because in real life, you don't have any time during your work day to be figuring out conversion problems between Word and OpenOffice.
[...]
For the perspective of an end user that prefers applications X, Y and Z only present in Windows, what kind of advantage does Linux actually offers? It used to offer more stability and security, but honestly I don't see Windows 7 being sensibly behind at these.
> What would possibly make me consider OSX? I assume I am well outside of their target market, but I am willing to consider your answer.
Loads and loads and loads of high quality, polished, high-level applications?
(taking from another post of mine in this thread http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2940345&cid=40457705) ;-)).
Seriously, can you:
- edit PDFs in Linux without shelling US$300 for Acrobat? (no, Okular does not edit your PDFs http://armbrust.blogspot.fr/2010/02/do-not-use-okular-to-fill-out-pdf-forms.html)
- do basic video editing with a polished application?
- high quality photo manipulation (at the level of Adobe Lightroom)?
- simple/good program to create a good looking family photo album to send to print?
- I have a `nice` photo camera AND a `nice` video camera (bought both when I had a kid). Can the firmware of those be updated with Linux? No.
- have your computer actually turn off the fan when not under load? Or after 2 hours of not being under load? (I only have a Lenovo Thinkpad certified for RHEL (i.e. Red Hat Enterprise Linux) running RHEL, the fscking fan *never* turns off.
- heck, does *your* laptop suspends reliably? I have a Dell for personal use, and suspend seems to only work on every 3rd Ubuntu release, if you get what I mean (at least the Dell can turn off its fan
- Oh, another one, I am going to buy that Retina MacbookPro that has an HDMI out. I do expect that Audio-out is going to work on HDMI. Never got that to work on Linux.
Notice that I really do not care for Gnome/KDE/etc. I just use Chrome/Firefox and a terminal (and loads of `software development` tools which would be the same on Linux/OSX/Windows). Breakage doesn't really affect me because I am smart enough not to upgrade too soon.
GP poster again.
If you need to really fill PDF forms in Linux, I'd suggest using this PDF X-Change through Wine:
http://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-lite
It is not ideal and crashes at time, but it gets the job done.
(I have no affiliation to this company, I just use their software)
- Decent priced PDF editor for filling in PDF files? No. (sorry, I am not buying Acrobat for that).
If you're talking about filling in PDF forms, Okular (part of KDE) already does that, though it won't do the self-calculating forms (unless it's added that more recently).
Not quite. Okular is merely fooling you into thinking it can do that.
Okular will add some *Okular specific* metadata to PDFs, and will display that as annotations and text, but all of that will **not** be saved as a standard PDF info. So if you send said PDF to your lawyer per email and the lawyer opens it using, say, Adobe Acrobat they comments and filled information will NOT show up.
http://armbrust.blogspot.fr/2010/02/do-not-use-okular-to-fill-out-pdf-forms.html
http://okular.kde.org/faq.php#addedannotationsinpdf
> But why would one NEED Word? I have yet to see a Word document that Oo wouldn't open easily and render well, despite MS's efforts to thwart them.
People need Word in the same way other people need Emacs or Vim. It is their preferred tool for the job.
> I can't agree; is there a Windows media player that will fetch the lyrics of a playing song and display them? If so I haven't found it.
Honestly, do you really like that? That is somehow a sore point for me because I used to love Amarok, until version 1.3, after that they rewrote everything -in order to include stuff like lyrics search- at IMO detriment of being a good music player. (perhaps it got better... its been years since I last used Amarok...)
When the choice is between open and better, the latter will always win.
#define "better", to me, kde is far more functional than os x, I recognize others don't think the same but they likely aren't using it in a similar fashion as to what I am. Without criteria defined there is no such thing as "better".
I'd say that most users definition of better is to be able to run the applications they want. It has nothing to do with workflow or interfaces. I think what the GP poster was about was not about a desktop's workflow but the whole `does it have the applications that users need/want to use`?
Something that seems lost to all FOSS desktop developers: the actual purpose of the OS + desktop environment is to just run applications. People really don't care about interfaces, or what happens when you type alt-bla. Really. They need Photoshop, Word, Steam, iTunes and they also need the printer/scanner to work when needed.
And just like Emacs won't cut it for VI users (and vice-versa) OpenOffice/Gimp/Etc won't do it.
The one I purchased for people in my workplace had Mac, linux and windows versions available at the same price.
Actually I use PDF X-Change through Wine (no affiliation, I am just a happy user). When it works, it works great. Sometimes Wine fails on me and it crashes. I would be ok, if I was filling some silly forms, but when I am filling forms to send to a lawyer, I appreciate NOT being annoyed/distracted by Wine crashes.
As for the other points, as an occasional (but cheapskate) Mac user I can't help to notice that Apple makes it very easy to find things to buy that do the job, even when I'm not actually looking but just want to use Safari. I think that's a major part of the success and popularity. On MS Windows or linux it's a fair bit of googling to find software that might do a task.
I don't think it would be hard to find these for Windows, but I reckon that a working app store with some-even-though-imperfect-malware-filtering makes buying software a lot safer and easier. Pretty much like how I never worried about buying used books from 20 random sellers through Amazon, only one reputable firm gets hold of my credit card number and there is a system in place to prevent wide-spread fraud.
IMHO Most people could care less about a desktop's work flow. If it works in *some way* you learn that and get over it. The reason people have computers is to run programs in it.
For one, loads of people need MS Word. Not OpenOffice (or whatever is the new name for it). My sister (pro-photograph) needs Photoshop, not the fscking Gimp. You can argue they /truly need/ it. But one way or another, why should they run an OS that lacks they prefered applications, when they run one that has?
If Linux doesn't have the programs you need or programs which are `good enough for your needs`, and Windows7 or OSX have them. Linux has great browsers, but great applications are really far and few in between.
Some 10 years ago, the Linux desktop was The Challenger. The first alternative to Microsoft. The cool OS to use for all the cool tech headed people. All people I knew working in academic research in 'hard science' fields used Linux.
That moment is gone.
All the younger cool tech-headed kids I know use Macs. Most people that I know that used Linux in the late 90's early 2000 years have migrated to Mac computers. Actually I can say that with one or two exceptions everyone migrated to Macs.
[...]
Personal annecdote:
Started using Linux in 1995. Worked as a Linux sysadmin when I was a student. Use Android phones and installed OpenWrt in my router (previous one ran Tomato). Own a Linux NAS (Debian based). I have a LWN.net subscription. My work computer runs RHEL. My parents computer (I bought it and maintain it), runs Ubuntu.
When my wife needed a new laptop, I bought her a MacBook Air. Not a chance I would inflict Gnome/KDE/Whatever on her.
I have a kid, little spare time and a fair amount of disposable income.
With the Linux desktop:
- Do I have a polished, easy to use, easily discoverable video editor? No.
- Polished, high quality photographic manager and processor for Linux (Like say, Adobe Lightroom)? No.
- Something easy to use for creating good looking family photo albums for printing? No.
- Decent priced PDF editor for filling in PDF files? No. (sorry, I am not buying Acrobat for that).
- Does my kick-ass Lenovo work laptop running certified RHEL has the fan on at all times? Yes.
If I went out of my way to find sort-of-good-enough alternatives for these things, could I do it? Probably.
Do I want to spend my time doing that? No.
The question on my mind right now, is which configuration of the new Retina MacBook Pro to order.
> I would like to see how that sub-$500 laptop is doing after 4 years...my bet is you'd probably need to retrieve it from a landfill first.
Get real.
I have a 7 yr old *consumer* Dell laptop, it does the job for email, web browsing, and ssh.
Look, I have no trouble with people being happy buying 'brand name' whatever. Unless you get a faulty item, if you take minimum care of your Apple / Thinkpad laptop, it will probably last you many years. Just don't delude yourself thinking that the same is also not true of a, say, consumer-level Dell laptop.