Linux is only free if you're willing to re-buy or do without a significant chunk of your computer.
40 million people (give or take) haven't experienced that problem to a sufficient extent to avoid upgrading to Linux-oriented FOSS. You have (thus far). But if you're like most people, you'll want to (or have to) replace your current machine(s) and peripheral cloud over the next few years, and now would be a reasonable time to evaluate your options, choose whether you want to be free or vendor-locked in the future, and make purchases that move you in the desired direction. That's what smart people do.
If you like Windows, by all means, run Windows. Carefully buy Windows-only hardware, if it floats your boat. Welcome the BSA's audit team with milk and cookies, and with checkbook standing by in case you've lost a receipt in the past 5 years. Just skip all of this ridiculous FUD based on a scanner you happen to have that is only supported on a single platform.
But the solution for this is so trivial I almost hate to mention it - check compatibility before you buy. You should do this with Mac and Windows Vista, too, by the way.
I had never read about using Windows 2D accelerated video drivers on Linux
Well, you read it here first. Literally. I'm using the restricted (but native) NVIDIA driver, not the Windows driver. I'd pay more attention to these things if Ubuntu would stop setting things up for me automatically.:-/
Sorry, my bad.
Microtek ScanMaker 4850
If I woke up in your shoes, I would:
Email Microtek and ask them to support Linux by making the technical info available.
Look around for other owners, ask what they are doing, and try to identify someone who can write the driver for you all (assuming the info is available - I suspect it's not, or the driver would already exist).
Buy a different scanner that's well-supported.
That's what I would do, but of course I already have a strong preference for Linux after 7 years of increasing use. If you have a large investment in the 4850, either financially, emotionally, or expertise..lly (?), it's probably worth staying with Windows until the thing wears out - or a newer model catches your eye.
Next time you buy a scanner, though, it might be worth checking into broad support - at least for the three major platforms.
If your experience matches this tendency, good for you. But if my experience does not, what should I do?
Keep using Windows XP, of course. If you like it, stick with it. I know people still using Windows 2000 (and at least one on 98), simply because it works for what they do.
My ideal world isn't 100% Ubuntu - it's more like 30% Linux (with several strong distributions to choose among), 30% Mac, 30% Windows and 10% Other. Well, maybe a little less Windows.;-) I dislike monopolies and the power they give to big corporations. XP isn't all that bad, it's the attitude of the sole supplier that really annoys me. Vista may be that bad, but I've yet to be forced to use it for a long enough period to be sure. Linux, on the other hand, works really well - for me.
Sorry if I sounded too evangelical. I'm just stating what works for me, and YMMV (and apparently does). But I've converted - uh, I mean, gently convinced:-) - quite a few people to give Linux a shot. I hope one day it's the best answer for you, too.
I've loaded Linux onto literally hundreds of machines, and I'm quite confident you are overstating the problem, although certain hardware still lacks native drivers. (Of course, Windows video drivers work pretty well on Linux - I'm using one to type this.:-)
For older hardware, however, driver support in Linux is generally superior to Vista, and a little thought will show why this is inevitable. Manufacturers have all the wrong motivations to support older hardware on Vista - it represents lost sales. (That is, they can't sell a driver, but if they don't provide a driver, they may sell new hardware to the unfortunate new Vista user.) I've had several manufacturers tell me this bluntly, and encourage me to "upgrade" to their latest product. No discounts for "upgraders", though...
Meanwhile, older hardware tends to be reverse-engineered (if necessary) by open source enthusiasts or corporations with a vested interest in the success of Linux, and drivers are provided and improve constantly.
Thus, support for older hardware tends to improve over time with Linux, but to degrade over time with Windows.
The best example is my wife's aging Canon MP730.
I had to Google it to find a way to configure the printer under Ubuntu 7.04; the scanner never worked at all. I got both working correctly under XP by first running the Canon-provided CD (and a lot of clicks).
Under Ubuntu 7.10, both were automagically configured and worked perfectly without a single click; under Vista, neither worked (repeated "missing.inf" errors when I tried to manually configure it, and Googling that day turned up many similar complaints in various support forums).
So I believe it is Vista that has a larger driver problem than Linux, and that the problem gets worse for Windows and less severe for Linux with each new release of either OS.
a company was rightfully fined for using Microsoft software illegally
No, a company was fined for not being able to prove they were not using Microsoft software illegally.
Although the EULA doesn't state they must provide a receipt for the software, or that the "Certificate of Authenticity" doesn't certify that the software is authentic (go figure), that is the standard to which Microsoft holds its customers on penalty of lawsuit or (more commonly) extortion.
I received two letters from the BSA in 2003, both warning me that I could be liable for "hundreds of thousands of dollars" if they audit my business and I am unable to prove that every copy of their member company's software was legally purchased. They helpfully offered, "Can your business afford that risk?"
Y'know, I couldn't. I switched to free-as-in-freedom software.
...one of Bush's early science advisers made it clear that he was opposed to life extension in principle and Bush explicitly backed him up on that.
References, please? My google-fu isn't up to finding any such quote from Bush. I would expected such an explicit opposition to life to have generated quite a furor among the pro-life community...
I don't know for sure, but since it's Slashdot, I'll happily speculate.;-)
Java is GPLed. A manufacturer is free to tweak Java for his machine and ship it... with the source code. Or, he can pay Sun a nominal fee for a non-GPL license and tweak to his heart's content, and keep his tweaks to himself.
This is precisely the dual-license model used for QT, and it works pretty well. Free software gets to use the technology for free. Proprietary software pays for a proprietary license, but they're charging their customers anyway. Everybody's happy. Well, except for BSD advocates...;-);-)
My company has a (less restrictive) agreement as well. When I started writing open source on my own time, I filled out an exemption form listing the type of free software I was developing, and briefly explaining why it is unrelated to the company's business and thus not covered under the agreement. After a couple of months (well, it's a large company:-), of review, the lawyers agreed, signed the form, and sent it to HR to be added to my file. I kept a copy... veeery carefully.
The key (I think) is to be reasonable, polite, and professional. Perhaps you'll have the same positive experience. It's worth a try.
(By the way, I give all of my best work-related ideas to the company. That's the deal we made when I was hired. In return, I've received steady promotions accompanied by frequent bonuses, so I have no qualms continuing to "ride for their brand". It worked for me, at least, but of course I've had mostly excellent managers and high-morale teams thus far. YMMV.)
I built a microprocessor from 74xx TTL logic in college as well - it took 5 boards (4 wire-wrapped, 1 soldered - we used what we could find in the lab). This was in 1983-84 (long before VHDL - I used straight Boolean equations), and the design was based on the one in our microprocessors book - but with additional instructions and some "optimized" logic (in hindsight, probably not so much:-). It never ran much past 1 MHz, though.
I also wrote a monitor program in assembler, so that new programs could be keyed into the machine on a hex keypad (but not too big - the entire machine had only 256 bytes of RAM!). I had enough arrogance in those days to call it an OS, but it was only about 120 bytes long. Then I wrote a compiler to compile the monitor, and a simulator to debug it, both on an Atari 800. I understand they used that processor for several years of future classes, until they upgraded to a newer textbook.
...in the US and moving there! I'm glad I didn't, as I really don't like what the US has become...
Taking travel advice from/. is probably not your best move. Perhaps you should visit the USA and see for yourself what life is like under the Evil Bush Administration (tm).
I've traveled a bit in the past 7 years, and noted some things I've never seen in the USA under the EBA. For example:
During my last trip to Mexico, my tour bus was stopped for 20 minutes and thoroughly searched by about 10 heavily armed military / police. The bus driver said they were looking for drugs. In the USA, we hold protest rallies and blog against the EBA when a single security guard with a pistol on his hip asks people entering a secure military base on public transportation for a photo ID. (Criticizing the government is a bigger sport here than American football...)
In Europe, many of the tourist traps we visited had very visible and very alert soldiers with sub-machine guns stationed around public areas. In the USA, I've yet to see more than a sleepy security guard with a dusty side arm. Of course, I could just be visiting the wrong tourist traps.
In Singapore, I felt *extremely* safe with the thorough security precautions. I also noticed virtually no evidence of crime; even freely accessible umbrellas in the hotel lobbies seemed to be carefully returned. I was afraid to take any aspirin while I was there, though.;-)
Note that I'm NOT NOT NOT criticizing these fine countries and cities - I had a wonderful time in all of them, even Paris, despite its reputation as hostile to Americans (perhaps my experience was different because I was speaking amusingly bad high school French). They have a right to their own culture and to decide their own levels of security, and if I choose to visit then I'll happily comply. Rather, my point is that, despite the diatribes on/. about "rising American fascism" and such, my daily experience in America on any day but 15 April is still blessedly absent much sign of the government at all.
So you're open to the idea of making the OLPC closed?
I believe this is precisely the argument made by BSD partisans - that the freedom to eliminate other people's freedom is "more free" than the constraint to preserve freedom. Having it applied to laptops is pretty novel, though.
You can do what you like with your own software (or laptops), but I'll invest my efforts in products that stay free for use and innovation by the masses.
(What's this world coming to when an aging Reagan Conservative starts advocating for "the masses"?!?)
One thing that has always bugged me about closed source software. Society grants a copyright "securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". However, if the source code isn't published, then society has no means by which to benefit from the software once copyright expires. Society has granted the temporary monopoly, but doesn't get the use of the work once the monopoly expires.
Given that apt-get/Synaptic is the primary way of obtaining software in Ubuntu, I think it's usability is a fair criticism, whether or not anything similar to apt-get exists in Windows
The usability of apt-get/Synaptic is certainly fair game - but I had read your point to be that adding additional repositories beyond supported, third-party, and universe was too difficult. Given that a mom-type is unlikely to go searching for software beyond the universe repository of 10,000 programs or so, and that universe can be enabled with a simple drop-down in the Add/Remove Programs dialog, I think your mom and my dad are square with that.
If your point is that clicking Add/Remove Programs and selecting programs to install in the dialog is too difficult for a mom-type, then the criticism is fair - but I don't see it. What better interface would you suggest? Other than "read the user's mind", I can't envision any easier way to get software. But maybe I lack imagination. *shrug*
Compiz is nice... Sure, my machine is a bit old, but even XP wasn't quite as sluggish.
That's not unexpected. XP is equivalent to Gnome, while Compiz is equivalent to Vista Aero. If you turn off Compiz, I suspect you'll get better resonse than with XP - and it will be a reasonable comparison. At least, that's been my consistent experience on several machines on which I've run both.
Ipod? Works pretty well.
Which is fairly impressive, come to think of it. Ipod is a rather closed ecosystem. My nice-and-open Nokia 770, on the other hand, works equally well as a music player with Windows or Ubuntu. Of course, it doesn't play DRM'd music - but that's a feature in my book.;-)
Synaptic/apt-get are great... Can't see my mom learning how to add repositories and public key signatures...
Does she have trouble adding repositories and public key signatures to XP? Oh, wait, XP and Vista can't do that. Maybe in 2010+. But it seems a bit unfair to claim Ubuntu is "not quite there yet" because a feature it has that XP lacks, and that works great out of the deb, can't be extended to even greater functionality without typing in a URL.
Actually, I'm torn between wanting a simpler way to add repositories, and believing that your mom should stick to the supported Ubuntu universe. Running unsupported software is a risk on any OS; perhaps keeping that as something special for the technically competent is a good design decision, like saving Nitro boosters for car performance enthusiasts.
For all the "moms" of the world, though... I just don't think it's quite there yet.
I respectfully disagree. My 88-year-old dad has fewer problems with Ubuntu than he had with XP (I set up both machines for him - he didn't do the OS install himself, of course).
Given a healthy pre-install market (currently growing), and a "Certified for Ubuntu" sticker to help consumers select supported peripherals (Canonical? Hello?), I think Ubuntu is finally ready with the Gibbon to go toe to toe with Microsoft and Apple in the commercial arena.
Just my humble opinion, of course. Yours and Mark Shuttleworth's may vary.:-)
Thanks! Actually, quite a few beginner (and intermediate and advanced) Linux support sites exist already. The barrier to entry is quite low, and Google makes the information rather easy to find. Since I install Linux on a lot of boxes each year, I rely on them often, and they rarely let me down (though you have to separate the wheat from chaff - but as sdkramer pointed out, UbuntuForums.org has high S/N and is usually trustworthy for Ubuntu issues).
I've puzzled over why I don't find the same quality of information for Microsoft's operating systems, especially given the excellent quality of their developer support. I've concluded that Microsoft itself is too focused on corporate (read: high-dollar paid) support for their operating systems to make good support information available for free to the unwashed masses, and independent free sites lack the copyrights to cover a lot of cases such as driver downloads or any analytic information beyond trial and error. Plus, the F/OSS community just strikes me as a lot more friendly and helpful by its nature than Windows' or Macs'.
That's my highly subjective and probably controversial opinion - but honestly held from 30 years of experience nonetheless.:-/
Software patents are illegal in Europe (although we're fighting hard to keep it that way).
When you get a chance, could you please send some help our way? We whipped Nazism as a team, let's make the world safe from software patents as well!:-)
People that have already decided the world would be a lot better place right now if one person on the Supreme Court had changed their vote...
It's 2007, by the way - we know what would have happened if the Florida Supreme Court had prevailed in requiring another recount under 'disparate rules'. From Wikipedia:
In the aftermath of the election, independent recounts were conducted by The Miami Herald and USA Today, concluding that Bush would have won in all legally requested recount scenarios, and in all other scenarios except for "a fresh recount in all counties using the most generous standards," which would have gone to Gore.
Additionally, The Media Consortium hired the National Opinion Research Center to examine 175,010 ballots that were never counted in Florida. The investigation took 8 months and cost $900,000. Again, Bush received more votes than Gore.
(emphasis added) Worse yet, Bush won the 2004 election with the first popular majority since Ronald Reagan, and with a historically high number of votes as well.
I understand that you hate the guy - I'm not his biggest fan by any means either, though perhaps for different reasons - but you should at least respect the truth enough to avoid making such obviously incorrect and inflammatory claims.
I'm delighted to have added a bit to your Madriva knowledge. Though I use Ubuntu at the moment, Mandrake / Mandriva will always hold a special place in my heart - they were my first love, and wooed me away when Windows broke my heart so many moons ago.
I too had a DVD powerpack; I was also a silver club member for several years, and even applied for a job (along with several thousand others) as a French-to-English translator for their website and promotional material.
I understand they are still very worthy of consideration when I get restless. I love having a choice in operating systems!:-):-):-)
Just for grins, my OS history is thus:
Oct 1977 IBM mainframe
Jun 1982 Atari 800
Apr 1985 Macintosh OS 1.0
Jul 1985 DOS 3.x - 6.x
Jun 1986 Windows 1.0 - 386
May 1990 Windows 3.0 - 3.1 (w/Norton Desktop)
Oct 1994 OS/2 3.0 Warp
Aug 1995 Windows 95 - 98
May 1999 Red Hat 6.1 (but gave up)
Dec 2000 Mandrake 7.2 - 10.1
Sep 2003 Lindows 4.0 - 5.0
Sep 2005 Ubuntu 5.10 - 7.04
I also tried Suse 10.0, Fedora 4, and Puppy 1.0.5 in 2005 before settling on Ubuntu 5.10.
Perfectly. Linspire's actions are legal, but they are unwise.
First, because when the mouse cuts a deal with the cat, you needn't ask what's on the feline menu next week.
Second, because commercial companies don't sell products, they sell image. The image "Microsoft Lackey Linux" just doesn't do much to pry cash from my wallet.
Microsoft, Apple,... are not the enemies they are competitors.
Yep. But please hear me out as a former Linspire customer.
The question with respect to Microsoft (particularly, given their conviction for monopolistic behavior) is, "Will they compete fairly?"
The general consensus based on years of observed behavior is, "No."
The concern is that deals such as Linspire signed imply that Microsoft has some legitimate patent claims against free software included in Linspire's product - a claim Microsoft has made but has refused to verify.
I have no problem with licensing deals for legitimate patents (pretending for the moment that any patent on software can be legitimate), but I dislike licenses for unspecified patents claimed to be in someone else's code. Linspire's agrement with Microsoft is analogous to poisoning the free software developer's well - and the code owners seem to largely have read it as both an insult and an attack. Me, too.
Simply licensing codecs doesn't concern me at all. It's the fuzzy patent licenses taken on other people's code that causes the unpleasant odor around Linspire Corporation and their products.
Hope that's clear and unemotional enough to help you understand the core issue. Well, at least my core issue.:-)
I believe Mandriva has provided proprietary products, drivers, etc. with their commercial offerings since at least their Mandrake name (they were sued into another name by a magician rather than a chair tosser). The philosophical difference is that Mandriva hasn't licensed Microsoft's secret 235 patents that allegedly might be related in some slight way to various undisclosed free software products. Whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
40 million people (give or take) haven't experienced that problem to a sufficient extent to avoid upgrading to Linux-oriented FOSS. You have (thus far). But if you're like most people, you'll want to (or have to) replace your current machine(s) and peripheral cloud over the next few years, and now would be a reasonable time to evaluate your options, choose whether you want to be free or vendor-locked in the future, and make purchases that move you in the desired direction. That's what smart people do.
If you like Windows, by all means, run Windows. Carefully buy Windows-only hardware, if it floats your boat. Welcome the BSA's audit team with milk and cookies, and with checkbook standing by in case you've lost a receipt in the past 5 years. Just skip all of this ridiculous FUD based on a scanner you happen to have that is only supported on a single platform.
But the solution for this is so trivial I almost hate to mention it - check compatibility before you buy. You should do this with Mac and Windows Vista, too, by the way.
Well, you read it here first. Literally. I'm using the restricted (but native) NVIDIA driver, not the Windows driver. I'd pay more attention to these things if Ubuntu would stop setting things up for me automatically. :-/
Sorry, my bad.
If I woke up in your shoes, I would:
That's what I would do, but of course I already have a strong preference for Linux after 7 years of increasing use. If you have a large investment in the 4850, either financially, emotionally, or expertise..lly (?), it's probably worth staying with Windows until the thing wears out - or a newer model catches your eye.
Next time you buy a scanner, though, it might be worth checking into broad support - at least for the three major platforms.
Keep using Windows XP, of course. If you like it, stick with it. I know people still using Windows 2000 (and at least one on 98), simply because it works for what they do.
My ideal world isn't 100% Ubuntu - it's more like 30% Linux (with several strong distributions to choose among), 30% Mac, 30% Windows and 10% Other. Well, maybe a little less Windows. ;-) I dislike monopolies and the power they give to big corporations. XP isn't all that bad, it's the attitude of the sole supplier that really annoys me. Vista may be that bad, but I've yet to be forced to use it for a long enough period to be sure. Linux, on the other hand, works really well - for me.
Sorry if I sounded too evangelical. I'm just stating what works for me, and YMMV (and apparently does). But I've converted - uh, I mean, gently convinced :-) - quite a few people to give Linux a shot. I hope one day it's the best answer for you, too.
I've loaded Linux onto literally hundreds of machines, and I'm quite confident you are overstating the problem, although certain hardware still lacks native drivers. (Of course, Windows video drivers work pretty well on Linux - I'm using one to type this. :-)
For older hardware, however, driver support in Linux is generally superior to Vista, and a little thought will show why this is inevitable. Manufacturers have all the wrong motivations to support older hardware on Vista - it represents lost sales. (That is, they can't sell a driver, but if they don't provide a driver, they may sell new hardware to the unfortunate new Vista user.) I've had several manufacturers tell me this bluntly, and encourage me to "upgrade" to their latest product. No discounts for "upgraders", though...
Meanwhile, older hardware tends to be reverse-engineered (if necessary) by open source enthusiasts or corporations with a vested interest in the success of Linux, and drivers are provided and improve constantly.
Thus, support for older hardware tends to improve over time with Linux, but to degrade over time with Windows.
The best example is my wife's aging Canon MP730.
So I believe it is Vista that has a larger driver problem than Linux, and that the problem gets worse for Windows and less severe for Linux with each new release of either OS.
Sure, I tried Vista... at Fry's. I was really disappointed, too. None of the windows burned up when I closed them. Not one.
Perhaps one day Vista will be ready for the desktop, but this is not that day.
The real seismic shift is from proprietary Windows-only applications to free and portable applications.
Once all of your applications are available on both Windows and Linux, "fairly major effort" above becomes "fairly trivial effort".
No, a company was fined for not being able to prove they were not using Microsoft software illegally.
Although the EULA doesn't state they must provide a receipt for the software, or that the "Certificate of Authenticity" doesn't certify that the software is authentic (go figure), that is the standard to which Microsoft holds its customers on penalty of lawsuit or (more commonly) extortion.
I received two letters from the BSA in 2003, both warning me that I could be liable for "hundreds of thousands of dollars" if they audit my business and I am unable to prove that every copy of their member company's software was legally purchased. They helpfully offered, "Can your business afford that risk?"
Y'know, I couldn't. I switched to free-as-in-freedom software.
References, please? My google-fu isn't up to finding any such quote from Bush. I would expected such an explicit opposition to life to have generated quite a furor among the pro-life community...
No one will ever switch to Vista until they get rid of all these obscure command lines, and make everything GUI like Ubuntu.
Oh, wait...
I don't know for sure, but since it's Slashdot, I'll happily speculate. ;-)
Java is GPLed. A manufacturer is free to tweak Java for his machine and ship it... with the source code. Or, he can pay Sun a nominal fee for a non-GPL license and tweak to his heart's content, and keep his tweaks to himself.
This is precisely the dual-license model used for QT, and it works pretty well. Free software gets to use the technology for free. Proprietary software pays for a proprietary license, but they're charging their customers anyway. Everybody's happy. Well, except for BSD advocates... ;-) ;-)
My company has a (less restrictive) agreement as well. When I started writing open source on my own time, I filled out an exemption form listing the type of free software I was developing, and briefly explaining why it is unrelated to the company's business and thus not covered under the agreement. After a couple of months (well, it's a large company :-), of review, the lawyers agreed, signed the form, and sent it to HR to be added to my file. I kept a copy... veeery carefully.
The key (I think) is to be reasonable, polite, and professional. Perhaps you'll have the same positive experience. It's worth a try.
(By the way, I give all of my best work-related ideas to the company. That's the deal we made when I was hired. In return, I've received steady promotions accompanied by frequent bonuses, so I have no qualms continuing to "ride for their brand". It worked for me, at least, but of course I've had mostly excellent managers and high-morale teams thus far. YMMV.)
I built a microprocessor from 74xx TTL logic in college as well - it took 5 boards (4 wire-wrapped, 1 soldered - we used what we could find in the lab). This was in 1983-84 (long before VHDL - I used straight Boolean equations), and the design was based on the one in our microprocessors book - but with additional instructions and some "optimized" logic (in hindsight, probably not so much :-). It never ran much past 1 MHz, though.
I also wrote a monitor program in assembler, so that new programs could be keyed into the machine on a hex keypad (but not too big - the entire machine had only 256 bytes of RAM!). I had enough arrogance in those days to call it an OS, but it was only about 120 bytes long. Then I wrote a compiler to compile the monitor, and a simulator to debug it, both on an Atari 800. I understand they used that processor for several years of future classes, until they upgraded to a newer textbook.
Fond memories... :-)
Taking travel advice from /. is probably not your best move. Perhaps you should visit the USA and see for yourself what life is like under the Evil Bush Administration (tm).
I've traveled a bit in the past 7 years, and noted some things I've never seen in the USA under the EBA. For example:
During my last trip to Mexico, my tour bus was stopped for 20 minutes and thoroughly searched by about 10 heavily armed military / police. The bus driver said they were looking for drugs. In the USA, we hold protest rallies and blog against the EBA when a single security guard with a pistol on his hip asks people entering a secure military base on public transportation for a photo ID. (Criticizing the government is a bigger sport here than American football...)
In Europe, many of the tourist traps we visited had very visible and very alert soldiers with sub-machine guns stationed around public areas. In the USA, I've yet to see more than a sleepy security guard with a dusty side arm. Of course, I could just be visiting the wrong tourist traps.
In Singapore, I felt *extremely* safe with the thorough security precautions. I also noticed virtually no evidence of crime; even freely accessible umbrellas in the hotel lobbies seemed to be carefully returned. I was afraid to take any aspirin while I was there, though. ;-)
Note that I'm NOT NOT NOT criticizing these fine countries and cities - I had a wonderful time in all of them, even Paris, despite its reputation as hostile to Americans (perhaps my experience was different because I was speaking amusingly bad high school French). They have a right to their own culture and to decide their own levels of security, and if I choose to visit then I'll happily comply. Rather, my point is that, despite the diatribes on /. about "rising American fascism" and such, my daily experience in America on any day but 15 April is still blessedly absent much sign of the government at all.
I believe this is precisely the argument made by BSD partisans - that the freedom to eliminate other people's freedom is "more free" than the constraint to preserve freedom. Having it applied to laptops is pretty novel, though.
You can do what you like with your own software (or laptops), but I'll invest my efforts in products that stay free for use and innovation by the masses.
(What's this world coming to when an aging Reagan Conservative starts advocating for "the masses"?!?)
One thing that has always bugged me about closed source software. Society grants a copyright "securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". However, if the source code isn't published, then society has no means by which to benefit from the software once copyright expires. Society has granted the temporary monopoly, but doesn't get the use of the work once the monopoly expires.
Seems like a raw deal on society's part to me.
Just my random thought of the day.
The usability of apt-get/Synaptic is certainly fair game - but I had read your point to be that adding additional repositories beyond supported, third-party, and universe was too difficult. Given that a mom-type is unlikely to go searching for software beyond the universe repository of 10,000 programs or so, and that universe can be enabled with a simple drop-down in the Add/Remove Programs dialog, I think your mom and my dad are square with that.
If your point is that clicking Add/Remove Programs and selecting programs to install in the dialog is too difficult for a mom-type, then the criticism is fair - but I don't see it. What better interface would you suggest? Other than "read the user's mind", I can't envision any easier way to get software. But maybe I lack imagination. *shrug*
That's not unexpected. XP is equivalent to Gnome, while Compiz is equivalent to Vista Aero. If you turn off Compiz, I suspect you'll get better resonse than with XP - and it will be a reasonable comparison. At least, that's been my consistent experience on several machines on which I've run both.
Which is fairly impressive, come to think of it. Ipod is a rather closed ecosystem. My nice-and-open Nokia 770, on the other hand, works equally well as a music player with Windows or Ubuntu. Of course, it doesn't play DRM'd music - but that's a feature in my book. ;-)
Does she have trouble adding repositories and public key signatures to XP? Oh, wait, XP and Vista can't do that. Maybe in 2010+. But it seems a bit unfair to claim Ubuntu is "not quite there yet" because a feature it has that XP lacks, and that works great out of the deb, can't be extended to even greater functionality without typing in a URL.
Actually, I'm torn between wanting a simpler way to add repositories, and believing that your mom should stick to the supported Ubuntu universe. Running unsupported software is a risk on any OS; perhaps keeping that as something special for the technically competent is a good design decision, like saving Nitro boosters for car performance enthusiasts.
I respectfully disagree. My 88-year-old dad has fewer problems with Ubuntu than he had with XP (I set up both machines for him - he didn't do the OS install himself, of course).
Given a healthy pre-install market (currently growing), and a "Certified for Ubuntu" sticker to help consumers select supported peripherals (Canonical? Hello?), I think Ubuntu is finally ready with the Gibbon to go toe to toe with Microsoft and Apple in the commercial arena.
Just my humble opinion, of course. Yours and Mark Shuttleworth's may vary. :-)
Thanks! Actually, quite a few beginner (and intermediate and advanced) Linux support sites exist already. The barrier to entry is quite low, and Google makes the information rather easy to find. Since I install Linux on a lot of boxes each year, I rely on them often, and they rarely let me down (though you have to separate the wheat from chaff - but as sdkramer pointed out, UbuntuForums.org has high S/N and is usually trustworthy for Ubuntu issues).
I've puzzled over why I don't find the same quality of information for Microsoft's operating systems, especially given the excellent quality of their developer support. I've concluded that Microsoft itself is too focused on corporate (read: high-dollar paid) support for their operating systems to make good support information available for free to the unwashed masses, and independent free sites lack the copyrights to cover a lot of cases such as driver downloads or any analytic information beyond trial and error. Plus, the F/OSS community just strikes me as a lot more friendly and helpful by its nature than Windows' or Macs'.
That's my highly subjective and probably controversial opinion - but honestly held from 30 years of experience nonetheless. :-/
I think I see the problem. Here's the answer.
When you get a chance, could you please send some help our way? We whipped Nazism as a team, let's make the world safe from software patents as well! :-)
It's 2007, by the way - we know what would have happened if the Florida Supreme Court had prevailed in requiring another recount under 'disparate rules'. From Wikipedia:
(emphasis added) Worse yet, Bush won the 2004 election with the first popular majority since Ronald Reagan, and with a historically high number of votes as well.
I understand that you hate the guy - I'm not his biggest fan by any means either, though perhaps for different reasons - but you should at least respect the truth enough to avoid making such obviously incorrect and inflammatory claims.
I'm delighted to have added a bit to your Madriva knowledge. Though I use Ubuntu at the moment, Mandrake / Mandriva will always hold a special place in my heart - they were my first love, and wooed me away when Windows broke my heart so many moons ago.
I too had a DVD powerpack; I was also a silver club member for several years, and even applied for a job (along with several thousand others) as a French-to-English translator for their website and promotional material.
I understand they are still very worthy of consideration when I get restless. I love having a choice in operating systems! :-) :-) :-)
Just for grins, my OS history is thus:
I also tried Suse 10.0, Fedora 4, and Puppy 1.0.5 in 2005 before settling on Ubuntu 5.10.
Perfectly. Linspire's actions are legal, but they are unwise.
First, because when the mouse cuts a deal with the cat, you needn't ask what's on the feline menu next week.
Second, because commercial companies don't sell products, they sell image. The image "Microsoft Lackey Linux" just doesn't do much to pry cash from my wallet.
Yep. But please hear me out as a former Linspire customer.
The question with respect to Microsoft (particularly, given their conviction for monopolistic behavior) is, "Will they compete fairly?"
The general consensus based on years of observed behavior is, "No."
The concern is that deals such as Linspire signed imply that Microsoft has some legitimate patent claims against free software included in Linspire's product - a claim Microsoft has made but has refused to verify.
I have no problem with licensing deals for legitimate patents (pretending for the moment that any patent on software can be legitimate), but I dislike licenses for unspecified patents claimed to be in someone else's code. Linspire's agrement with Microsoft is analogous to poisoning the free software developer's well - and the code owners seem to largely have read it as both an insult and an attack. Me, too.
Simply licensing codecs doesn't concern me at all. It's the fuzzy patent licenses taken on other people's code that causes the unpleasant odor around Linspire Corporation and their products.
Hope that's clear and unemotional enough to help you understand the core issue. Well, at least my core issue. :-)
I believe Mandriva has provided proprietary products, drivers, etc. with their commercial offerings since at least their Mandrake name (they were sued into another name by a magician rather than a chair tosser). The philosophical difference is that Mandriva hasn't licensed Microsoft's secret 235 patents that allegedly might be related in some slight way to various undisclosed free software products. Whatever.