To be fair, a lot of people don't care about embedded because no one sees the OS in embedded systems.
Until your ATM running Windows Embedded crashes. AFTER it takes your card!
On the contrary, it is a lack of support on the side of Linux developers. In order to compete, and finally see the oft-mentioned "year of the Linux desktop", it is up to the developers to put in the effort to make Linux run as well as possible. So Windows should be held to the same standards perhaps? Hate to break it to you, but Linux developers have already done it. Most standard hardware works out of the box with no added drivers needed. The more unusual stuff does need some careful choices, but the same could be said of any hardware that needs a manufacturer's driver disk.
Last time I installed Windows was last August, pretty standard hardware, a copy of XP home SP2... And a driver disk for the network card, the sound card, the TV tuner card, The motherboard drivers, the keyboard and mouse, and last but not least, the video card. All non Microsoft drivers for hardware designed primarily to run on Windows. Oh.. and I needed to make a driver disk to get windows to recognize the SATA drive I was about to install onto, and needed a second keyboard and mouse to get everything working, as Windows didn't recognize my Logitech wireless usb keyboard and mouse.
Now for Linux, I inserted the disk, and I had the network card recognized and set up automatically, and the sound card was also automatically set up and working on first boot, as was the motherboard drivers with USB2 functionality, and the SATA drive was recognised as such and treated appropriately. All on the exact same hardware which was all older than the copy of Windows I was installing. I would have had to download drivers for the video card, but thats about it. And Linux took minutes to format the entire 500gig drive, where Windows took hours.
If I am to take your statement seriously, we should hold Microsoft directly responsible for any hardware that does not work under Windows, as to paraphrase your comment, "It is up to the developers to put in the effort to make Windows run as well as possible"
I'm not excusing bundling. I'm saying it's not severely skewing the market. If it were, the unbundling would mean IE's usage would definitely drop severely from 70-80% to under 50%. My personal experience with indifferent home users would tend to disagree with you.
So far, Everyone I have installed Firefox for has not switched back to IE, and are very impressed with the plugins and themes, and the spell checker in text fields. And of those who have tried IE7, only one likes it.
If IE was unbundled, then I don't think many people would download it as an informed choice, if anything, people might keep it around for Windows updates, but not much else. There are a lot of IE users, but at a guess, those that don't specifically need it to access a given web page are unaware of alternatives. The number of "IE by informed free choice" users I think is very small.
and inverse universe. What? Gates wants kinder, gentler capitalism? Cant that be like the wolf asking for its prey to exercise and make self beefier, juicer, and more succulent? But its Bill's new market strategy... Embrace, Cuddle... Extinguish.
Why is something as basic as a desktop OS something that one needs to "know how to install"? Why do we still have a concept of "installation" as something that's nontrivial?
Your statement sounds as bizarre to me as "There is absolutely no reason why users need to know how to connect to the internet". It was a reasonable concern, when connecting to the internet required a bunch of obscure knowledge. Today, though, I can walk into any coffee shop in the country (except Starbucks, I guess, because they charge for it), select "Turn AirPort On", and I'm done.
Installation should be as easy as insert DVD, turn on computer, click "Install $(os_name) on blank hard disk", wait 10 minutes. It should be that simple. But the hardware and software industries have been going their own ways for far too long.
In reality. No OS "just works" otherwise there would be no help forums. And you Apple fanboys can stop looking smug.. I read about the problems some people had with Leopard, so even OSX isn't completely free of issues.
Oh, you're british?
I almost mistook you for an American KKK member, or a German Neo-Nazi!
Now I wonder why I would make that mistake??? Sadly.. we have them over here too.
Most of my family is still on dial-up with no broadband (outside of satellite) available.
Good luck with the click/download/install idea. So how do they manage with things like software updates, windows security patches and the like?
Its been a while since I used dialup, but from memory, Microsoft don't exactly go.out of their way to produce dialup friendly updates, and I wouldn't reccomend surfing with outdated unpatched copies of Windows.
"But surely it can't be any good if they're just giving it away. After all, you don't get something for nothing." Funnily enough, a friend said exactly that. Then.... His copy of office went funny after an upgrade.
His first question after using Open Office was "How come Microsoft don't sue them for copying Office?" He has been using it for the last six months, and has proven to himself that Office wasn't something that he actually needed.
Nothing wrong wth using Office, It's your choice....lsn't it?
1. Linux absolutely flies on a Vista-capable machine. Smokin.
2. You don't have to run Vista on your nice machine. You forgot..
3 Guaranteed Linux compatible hardware.
So you are free to wipe Suse out and put your favorite Linux distro on it without having to worry about reduced functionality due to unsupported hardware.
I know it's apocryphal to even make this point, but is it possible that there is a point beyond which the basic Office-style apps simply cannot be improved? This is a serious question, not troll. Given the constraints of near-horizon technology (no AI, imperfect voice recognition, no brain-computer interfaces), how much better can word-processor, spreadsheet and slideshow programs get? Leave aside databases, design and payout apps, and other things bundled in MS Office for the sake of simplicity. Is there a point at which the three basic apps couldn't get any better?
I'd be very interested to hear people's thoughts on this because I'm guessing it will bring out all sorts of interesting suggestions for improvements that have never occurred me. Ahh... the voice of sanity..
Office is not a DTP app. Excel is not a database. There are circumstances where Office is used for everything, but it's like trying to build a boat with a swiss army knife. Better than nothing, but not the same thing as having the right tool for the job.
Having used both Office and OpenOffice.org extensively, I'm not really convinced that OO.o is really superior. Now, it is of course better in that it's open source, and it uses openly-documented file formats. But the user experience of OO.o is still lacking in many respects. Even on fast systems, it's slow and bloated. Open Office may not be feature for feature equivalent with Office, but it doesn't need to be. How many actually used features are not similar enough to get by. And how many of the advanced and possibly incompatible features will be taught at school level? Especially bearing in mind that we are talking about computers that are going to be several generations behind what we would personally be using at home. Teach concepts, not brand names, and there is a chance that there may be a somewhat computer literate student at the end of the process.
I think it would be better to teach these children how to use LaTeX. It offers the openness of OO.o, but allows for the preparation of much more professional documentation. It would also be very useful for those students who wish to pursue university studies, as most math, science and engineering papers are formatted using LaTeX. If the schools were turning out pupils that were headed for such professions, then you would have a point. But sadly, the UK education system is not renowned for producing such a product at the moment.
Because supplying CDs with Vista is cheap. Buying a 700£ computer *per seat* able to run Vista is not. Only £700? Don't they use approved educational suppliers that sell standard kit at a huge mark up any more?
This would be an interesting way to shore up the National Debt--Missile Rentals to petty despots. Already well in hand, although the arms industry seems to prefer outright sales. Its such a bother going around each week to get the rent.
What specifically does Windows do better than Linux? By which I mean Windows the OS, not Windows the platform.
OS or platform, the answer is the same-- attract commercial developers. Not really. The OS is a technical product. It has the job of sitting between the application and the hardware and enabling the user to run the app. It has it's own technical strengths and weaknesses which are not dependent on the number of users or developers.
I heard the stumbling block in getting "a high-quality Windows experience" on the XO laptop was the damn "View Source" button on the keyboard.
-Isaac Yep.. It kept flashing up that Goatse picture.
Agreed it is very easy to install. But personal experience and hearsay suggest it is not so compatible to run some apps. It has been a while so I may just give it another go. I don't think it ever will be a 100% replacement for Windows, but then how could it, unless Microsoft have been really overselling their product for years. As compromises go, it's not bad.
I hate to say it, but virtualisation is not moving people off Windows very fast, and wine has to be set up for them. Um... Can't speak for all distros, but if Fedora, its...
su - your root password
yum install wine
wait a bit for it to download.
Or fire up Add/Remove software, enter root password when asked, and find it in the list.
go to the menu and run wine configuration once to make the virtual disk structure and select the sound card, and after that just double click the windows executable you want to use. 5 minutes reading howtos on the wine site and a few more to download the thing. If that is too hard, then they may as well pack their computer up and return it to the shop.
People are generally not stupid. Lazy.. yes. But if the task is considered important enough, they will make an effort to find out how to do it, or find someone who will show them.
"Let's face facts, there is tons of software that is not on Linux that people want."
Can someone tell me what, other than games, is not available that the home user wants. I realize that there are some corporate apps, most notably outlook/exchange, but I cannot see what is missing for a home user. OK, dvd support and proprietary codec support, but the support is there, there are just laws in the way. Seriously, I've seen people go to greater effort to install pirated software than it takes to figure out how to make a Linux box media friendly. When I got serious about using Linux, it took me less than 24 hours the first time before I had all the media codecs and DVD playing up and running. And thats because It wasn't obvious where Fedora users went to get such information. Once I found the forum, I was away.
BTW.. to keep this balanced, for me.. 3D CAD packages that cost less than a small house are currently missing from Linux. Blender is an animation program, not CAD. But then, I can't afford a good Widows CAD package either. I'll just have to make do with Sketchup, which does now run with Wine, and fills my need to create.
Slashdot Mirror
Anybody get a flashback of those OCP sponsored cartoons from Robocop?
Last time I installed Windows was last August, pretty standard hardware, a copy of XP home SP2... And a driver disk for the network card, the sound card, the TV tuner card, The motherboard drivers, the keyboard and mouse, and last but not least, the video card. All non Microsoft drivers for hardware designed primarily to run on Windows. Oh.. and I needed to make a driver disk to get windows to recognize the SATA drive I was about to install onto, and needed a second keyboard and mouse to get everything working, as Windows didn't recognize my Logitech wireless usb keyboard and mouse.
Now for Linux, I inserted the disk, and I had the network card recognized and set up automatically, and the sound card was also automatically set up and working on first boot, as was the motherboard drivers with USB2 functionality, and the SATA drive was recognised as such and treated appropriately. All on the exact same hardware which was all older than the copy of Windows I was installing. I would have had to download drivers for the video card, but thats about it. And Linux took minutes to format the entire 500gig drive, where Windows took hours.
If I am to take your statement seriously, we should hold Microsoft directly responsible for any hardware that does not work under Windows, as to paraphrase your comment, "It is up to the developers to put in the effort to make Windows run as well as possible"
So far, Everyone I have installed Firefox for has not switched back to IE, and are very impressed with the plugins and themes, and the spell checker in text fields. And of those who have tried IE7, only one likes it.
If IE was unbundled, then I don't think many people would download it as an informed choice, if anything, people might keep it around for Windows updates, but not much else. There are a lot of IE users, but at a guess, those that don't specifically need it to access a given web page are unaware of alternatives. The number of "IE by informed free choice" users I think is very small.
How about a flat rock and a burnt stick?
Your statement sounds as bizarre to me as "There is absolutely no reason why users need to know how to connect to the internet". It was a reasonable concern, when connecting to the internet required a bunch of obscure knowledge. Today, though, I can walk into any coffee shop in the country (except Starbucks, I guess, because they charge for it), select "Turn AirPort On", and I'm done.
Installation should be as easy as insert DVD, turn on computer, click "Install $(os_name) on blank hard disk", wait 10 minutes. It should be that simple. But the hardware and software industries have been going their own ways for far too long.
In reality. No OS "just works" otherwise there would be no help forums. And you Apple fanboys can stop looking smug.. I read about the problems some people had with Leopard, so even OSX isn't completely free of issues.
Good luck with the click/download/install idea. So how do they manage with things like software updates, windows security patches and the like?
Its been a while since I used dialup, but from memory, Microsoft don't exactly go.out of their way to produce dialup friendly updates, and I wouldn't reccomend surfing with outdated unpatched copies of Windows.
His first question after using Open Office was "How come Microsoft don't sue them for copying Office?" He has been using it for the last six months, and has proven to himself that Office wasn't something that he actually needed.
Nothing wrong wth using Office, It's your choice....lsn't it?
1. Linux absolutely flies on a Vista-capable machine. Smokin.
2. You don't have to run Vista on your nice machine. You forgot..
3 Guaranteed Linux compatible hardware.
So you are free to wipe Suse out and put your favorite Linux distro on it without having to worry about reduced functionality due to unsupported hardware.
Anybody remember those really cheap "High quality" audio cassettes?
su -
your root password
yum install wine
wait a bit for it to download.
Or fire up Add/Remove software, enter root password when asked, and find it in the list.
go to the menu and run wine configuration once to make the virtual disk structure and select the sound card, and after that just double click the windows executable you want to use. 5 minutes reading howtos on the wine site and a few more to download the thing. If that is too hard, then they may as well pack their computer up and return it to the shop.
People are generally not stupid. Lazy.. yes. But if the task is considered important enough, they will make an effort to find out how to do it, or find someone who will show them.
Can someone tell me what, other than games, is not available that the home user wants. I realize that there are some corporate apps, most notably outlook/exchange, but I cannot see what is missing for a home user. OK, dvd support and proprietary codec support, but the support is there, there are just laws in the way. Seriously, I've seen people go to greater effort to install pirated software than it takes to figure out how to make a Linux box media friendly. When I got serious about using Linux, it took me less than 24 hours the first time before I had all the media codecs and DVD playing up and running. And thats because It wasn't obvious where Fedora users went to get such information. Once I found the forum, I was away.
BTW.. to keep this balanced, for me.. 3D CAD packages that cost less than a small house are currently missing from Linux. Blender is an animation program, not CAD. But then, I can't afford a good Widows CAD package either. I'll just have to make do with Sketchup, which does now run with Wine, and fills my need to create.