..of linux and open-source in a large scale deployment. It's a huge win, but will be a great logistical test. This is a massive deployment and may be used as a model for future large-scale deployments of "linux in the enterprise".
Any way you look at it, Linux and open-source will benefit. It is a massive challenge as well as a great victory.
It's a pie that belongs to everyone and no one, and a victory for every open source developer, user, and company. Hancom have sold a linux support contract in an area of the world where Redhat has no sales presence, but the fact that Hancom linux is using Redhat will raise their profile.
That said, Redhat have done a remarkable job with the distro post 7.0, and choosing Redhat as the base for a tailored package is a good choice for a large scale deployment. Redhat might even gain from this themselves, through a trickle-down effect.
Anyway, this is a great victory for linux and open-source. Very happy to get good news for a change:-)
First off, this comment was moderated as "Funny". I don't think it's funny nearly as much as it's poignant and interesting.
I realize now that I made it seem funny with my "Good one:-)", when I really thought it was just a good way of putting what things have come down to with respect to the value of computers.
The question that needs to be answered is whether we would prefer to have the TV move to the computer, or the computer move to the TV.
Yup, I think that's what it boils down to. I think in 2-3 years we're going to see how this is going to play itself out. Probably affluent households will have a computer and TV, while the less affluent will just have a TV. However, as one poster has replied, they are functionally different in that only one person at a time can use the Internet (not strictly speaking, but for the most part), while the TV is often shared with more than one person.
I think for the Internet applicance idea to really take off a few things have to happen:
A large manufacturer has to mass produce an appliance that is cheap with a decent screen. They would then partner with a large ISP provider who would sell them or rent them out as part of a high speed package. The appliance would come pre-configured for the ISP, and would contain all the apps the user would need. The OS could be linux, *BSD, but it wouldn't matter - the user wouldn't even notice. The whole thing would be almost as plug and play as getting a telephone.
This is the way I see it. As long as people will need a PC to connect to the Internet the Internet's growth will be limited by the PC. I remember in the mid-90's, before I knew a damn thing about computing and the Internet, people were telling me I needed the latest low-end machine loaded with Windows 95 to connect to the Internet. Then, that meant at least a $1500(CD) investment. In the end, I wound up connecting with a Toshiba T3200 286 lap top with a 40 MB hdd and 2 MB RAMand a 2400 baud modem. Got a shell dial-in account, and the Internet was available to me. My barrier to entry (to the Internet), instead of being $1500, turned out to be $250.
Oh, and I got to learn the basics of a Unix shell, and instead of getting entertainment, I got substance...
Back in the 70's and 80's not many people had a home PC, but those that did knew something about what they were running. It seemed to do a lot of things then, and it does even more now.
But the PC has grown into an overblown Internet applicance, and it remains the biggest barrier to the Internet for most people. Getting on the Internet is enormously complicated when you think of how simple it should be. If it were only as simple as getting an appliance, plugging it in, entering a username and password, and you're on the 'Net - there would be many more using the Net.
At this point, the OS is irrelevant. Most people just can't get a handle on what an OS is, because they can't touch it or see it. IMHO, linux will be a success anywhere it doesn't get noticed. When people notice the OS, it's probably not a good thing.
I just don't see these tasks as sysadmin tasks, though they are sysadmn tasks in an office environment. The point is that some will claim that Windows is far easier to learn, and that it extends computer literacy. IMO, a literate computer user is a user that knows how to use and maintain their tools. The above tasks, and more I failed to mention, are tasks all Windows users should know. Yet the average Windows user usually feels hostage to their PC.
So, given that Windows is more expensive on all counts and does not lead to computer literacy by almost any measure, my question is this:
Good things are the gov gives hardware to people. This has got to be good. Bad thing is it "includes a provision for Windows", which will ensure that the poor will remain as blissfully computer illiterate as the next Windows user.
Windows users are not a computer literate bunch as a whole. I've supported at least a hundred Windows users in the past 2 years and I can tell you that most can't properly install software or drivers, back up files, create proper network shares, and are generally frustrated by the computer's inability to do what they it to do and live up to its promise of a simpler life. I don't blame them. The combination of the PC and Windows xxx just made their lives more complicated than it ever was.
This is not meant as a put-down to Windows users, but most people who work on a Windows box day in, day out know how to use email and the web, write in a word processor, and know one application very well. That's it.
So Belgian working jane with PC and Windows != computer literate working jane.
Also, no matter how you look at it, Windows costs far more to maintain. Virus scanners, Office, Outlook Express (costs a lot no matter how free it is) - all this software costs a lot of money. The lack of adequate security in Windows '98/ME. I've supported both linux workstations and all flavours of Windows, and I think I know both platforms well. Windows, Windows software, and Windows support costs bug bucks. It makes no sense to deploy Windows for this purpose. Doing so is simply creating a client lock-in.
A better solution is to at least allow them to dual-boot and give them choice. It's a simple matter to build a pc with hardware supported by both Windows and Linux, create an image, and then give the box away.
I know that today linux is as good and in some areas a better desktop OS than Windows. Office software for the home user is ready , at least 3 great browsers with more coming, mplayer once configured is a joy and plays more of my mpegs than Windows Media Player, Real is just as good and less obnoxious than on Windows/Mac, Evolution is just about there and is stable, PAN rocks for news, and the wealth of choice in the Desktop environment. Linux is there, no matter how much people don't want it to be.
The US never has and never will bully China as long as it can have the opportunity to exploit the market potential that exists there. The People's Republic of China has huge market potential, but has committed crimes against humanity on par with anything the Nazi's did in Germany.
The US and other Western nations have consistently turned a blind eye to Chinese human rights violations. If the Chinese have conformed to to the wishes of the US "anti-piracy" lobby, then it's because they're getting something else down the line, or have already.
I'd say that this post-cold war talk of a lone super power (the US) is erroneous. The only country in the world that can still pretty much do what it wants to without facing any consequences from the US is China. They have an understanding of where they can give and take from each other. Also, if the Chinese do relent to pressures from the US gov't and lobbies, they probably have something to gain.
The US are very much the bully here. The Ukraine are an easy target and I too admire their courage.
Why would you want to put DOS on a 1st generation pentium except to play the games of the day?
I think a light weight GUI like Windowmaker combined with something like XFCE is perfect on these kinds of machines. Dual-booting DOS and linux, OK, but a newbie's experience of the Internet on DOS just isn't as rich as you can get with linux.
I like WIndowmaker, and Enlightenment isn't bad on a 32MB low-end pentium either. For file manager. XFtree (part of XFCE), or even anyone of the above wm's combined with XFCE could be great for setting up a newbie user on a 1st gneration pentium. I've just done this for a friend....
No need to HEED the gcc 2.96 warning. --disable-gcc-checking will take care of that.
It works fine for me on Redhat 7.1 with gcc-2.96-85. Really, they just have a problem with Redhat period, and I don't think they think much of anyone using Redhat linux. I wonder what real consequences derive from using this version of gcc. I've had no problems with mplayer.
It's a great program once its up and running, though. Best video playback on linux.
I don' think so. I got my start at 33 working as a contracted sys admin in a small department in a large telecomm company. I had been working with Linux for a couple of years, took one of those sys admin career programs at a sub-par college after I left my dead end job at a bank, and I haven't looked back since.
Fact is, being 33 is probably a big advantage if you have the skills to go with it. There are many young, talented linux/unix whiz kids out there, I've learned from them, they've learned from me. Often, IT departments are full of these young people who are really smart about technical stuff, but are lacking good communication skills and "bedside manner". Being older and having more epxerience is a huge advantage in these environments.
Ideally, you enroll in some kind of college level program that gives you a solid background from which to start. The college I went to wasn't much good, they hardly taught Unix, with the emphaisis being entriely Novell and Windows NT. Out of 23 kids, I was the only one interested in Linux and Unix, I spent my spare time studying and learning linux while doing well in the college courses.
When I finished the course, I spent a hard winter on social assistance and hit the jackpot by the spring - a company had heard about me through a fellow student who applied for a job requiring Unix and NT knowledge and experience. This company had a contract with a small department within Nortel , and they were desperate to fill the position. So while I was pretty desperate, they were even more desperate, and I got the job.
The position I got was perfect for my skill set at the time. It was varied, required good communication and service skills, and I got to support HP-UX, NT, and Novell servers as well as Windows 95 (ARGGHH). The latter was the hardest part. I wasn't over my head with this position, but I got my feet wet.
I left that job to go on to a real linux position a year later, and there I learned tons about linux and networking and I never realized how little I knew until then. I worked side by side with a young man who had very little social graces, but knew tons about Unix since he'd been into it since he was 12. We taught each other a great deal in a year.
Certification can be important, but not essential once you've got the experience. It might be more important in this economic climate. I have university history, a technical diploma from a private college, and that's it.
It's been a great experience for me. I built a new career for myself by 33, after spending 11 years in a dead end job. You can do the same if you want to get out of teaching. In fact, the fact that you're a teacher will be of great help to you if you get into unix system administration.
I'd argue that with Linux, one has simplicity and ease of use. When has any non-technical user found it easy to install Windows?
My experience is they are usually being charged something like $75 an hour to install drivers and the OS and whatever else. It's simply false to suggest that non-technical users are able to install Windows with ease. They usually never install anything other than software.
I read the print version of this article, and while I enjoyed it, it has serious problems.
First, he suggests that everyone would be better off if Linux (or any other open-source alternative) just gave up on trying to create a competitive desktop to Windows. The situation with BE makes it clear that there can be no commerical alternative to Windows that can succeed because of the MS monopoly, so open source solutions are IMHO the only choice. He suggests that Microsoft's Windows is and will always be the only choice on the desktop for consumers, and that trying to work on alternatives is a waste of time. In other words, let's just accept that MS are a monopolist and not try anymore. Having seen where KDE has come from in the last 3 years, I beg to differ.
He also states that "The Linux desktop offers very little that could be considered plug-and-play.". He goes on to talk about the lack of drivers for scanners and digital cameras, not exactly the kind of peripherals everyone has with their PC. At any rate, I've installed hundreds of Windows and Linux PCs, and I can say with confidence that Linux is in fact more plug and play on hardware it supports than Windows is. With the 2.4 kernel, this situation is improved.
With Windows, I install the hardware, boot the machine, install the driver, reboot the machine. Hopefully it'll work, and to be fair usually does. With Linux, I install the hardware, boot the machine. No fiddling with obnoxious drivers, no reboots.
I've been very impressed with a distro like RH 7.1 in this regard. In my experience, a standard networked office PC is far easier to install with RH 7.1 than any Windows PC. Less time less hassle. As for digital cameras, I know a few who would beg to differ on their ease of installation in an OS like Win 98.
Anyway, the article hasn't convinced me it's time to cede to Windows. Since I've used and supported both, I'd say that Microsoft's success will continue depend on the bundling of software like Windows Media and IE, not on its superior hardware support.
To all you desktop developers out there - keep up the great work!
You're right. Who needs competition? Windows is the defacto desktop, let's keep it that way. Who cares if it costs thousands to equip a $1,000 PC with useful software, when an open-source desktop will cost you practically nothing apart from the hardware.
Shame on these people who dare to make a useful linux desktop.
Obviously, there are way more windows admins out there convincing IT depts there are no choices, and in shops heavy on Visual Basic and the like there may not be.
Fact is, there is no competition, because if there was, MS would not be pricing XP the way it is. And this time limit to get a decent upgrade price is probably because they're worried they may have competition early next year. The pace of development on linux and KDE ought to have them worried, but for now, they want their clients locked in for another few years
Re:Try be inovative instead of just replicate ?
on
Linux on the Desktop
·
· Score: 1
Good point. While we can't simply replicate, we also have to ensure compatibility. No point in making a word processor that can't open msword files in 2001. It's also important to ensure a quick learning curve, so that people don't have to spend hours learning how to write what they wrote in Word.
So while I agree that we have to get beyond imitating Windows software, it is necessary to "clone" to a certain extent.
I think Abiword is on the right path, as far as WYSIWYG editors go. It has most of the features one needs to write a document, and can open most Word docs. For most people, Abiword is all they need and it's not obnoxious like Word. It let's you get to the busniness of writing and doesn't tell you what to do.
As a sysadmin in a small company supporting about 30 nt workstations, and 15 linux servers and desktops, the licensing and support costs for the nt boxes is not justified by any tangible benefits. I can justify converting more than half the nt stations to linux on licensing cost saving alone, and I can demonstrate that in the majority of cases Linux will do whatever we need it to do.
This wasn't true on the desltop up until recently. Thanks to KDE 2, Opera, Linux 2.4.x, Abiword and Gnumeric (for opening 90% of xls and word files where I work), mplayer and dozens of other applications I'm neglecting to mention, Linux is just about there. 3 years ago it was another story...
if you want to try a linux desktop distro, these should be installed and tweaked for stability.
I've had stability problems with Mandrake 8.0, Redhat 7.1 is simple to install and maintain and is very stable, and by all accounts Slackware 8.0 is very stable and not all that difficult to install. I would recommend Redhat 7.1 or Slackware. Mandrake 8.0 I've found far too unstable to recommend, though it's a joke to install.
And then when the austrlian samba developer does a talk on Samba at LISA or some such he'll get arrested. More craziness in the Land of the Free.
Re:Just the libraries please
on
KDE 2.2 Tagged
·
· Score: 1
Funny, I've got a PII with a measly 128 MB RAM and KDE is pretty snappy. Certainly faster than Gnome, and when I want WindowMaker or Enlightenment I run those. Listening to you, you'd think that KDE needs more than a 1 GB of RAM to run well, when it runs just fine on 128. Give me a break....
Re:Use Mandrake 8, not RedHat, for KDE
on
KDE 2.2 Tagged
·
· Score: 1
RH 7.1 is fine with KDE. I've installed it on at least a dozen machines and had absolutely no problems. OTOH, Mandrake 8.0 has been very unstable on the machines I've installed it on, and XFfree usually crashes often. IMHO, RH 7.1 is a fine desktop distro.
Re:4. Is Alan Cox still not going to US convention
on
Adobe Backs Down
·
· Score: 1
Here, here! How can this possibly be victory?
If the dismantling of the DMCA depends on the EFF we're all in trouble, American or not. The EFF sucking up to Adobe and giving them a plug to boot, while Adobe strongly supporting the DMCA and glad its working, but hey its out of their hands now. How can they not backdown? It's win-win for Adobe and everyone else loses.
Yes, when I hear Illustrator. When you hear Word in a word processing context, do you think Microsoft Word? I guess Abiword is fair game for you? I suppose Microsoft would have a right to go after Kword and Abiword in that case?
Slashdot Mirror
..of linux and open-source in a large scale deployment. It's a huge win, but will be a great logistical test. This is a massive deployment and may be used as a model for future large-scale deployments of "linux in the enterprise".
Any way you look at it, Linux and open-source will benefit. It is a massive challenge as well as a great victory.
It's a pie that belongs to everyone and no one, and a victory for every open source developer, user, and company. Hancom have sold a linux support contract in an area of the world where Redhat has no sales presence, but the fact that Hancom linux is using Redhat will raise their profile.
:-)
That said, Redhat have done a remarkable job with the distro post 7.0, and choosing Redhat as the base for a tailored package is a good choice for a large scale deployment. Redhat might even gain from this themselves, through a trickle-down effect.
Anyway, this is a great victory for linux and open-source. Very happy to get good news for a change
First off, this comment was moderated as "Funny". I don't think it's funny nearly as much as it's poignant and interesting.
I realize now that I made it seem funny with my "Good one:-)", when I really thought it was just a good way of putting what things have come down to with respect to the value of computers.
The question that needs to be answered is whether we would prefer to have the TV move to the computer, or the computer move to the TV.
Yup, I think that's what it boils down to. I think in 2-3 years we're going to see how this is going to play itself out. Probably affluent households will have a computer and TV, while the less affluent will just have a TV. However, as one poster has replied, they are functionally different in that only one person at a time can use the Internet (not strictly speaking, but for the most part), while the TV is often shared with more than one person.
I think for the Internet applicance idea to really take off a few things have to happen:
A large manufacturer has to mass produce an appliance that is cheap with a decent screen. They would then partner with a large ISP provider who would sell them or rent them out as part of a high speed package. The appliance would come pre-configured for the ISP, and would contain all the apps the user would need. The OS could be linux, *BSD, but it wouldn't matter - the user wouldn't even notice. The whole thing would be almost as plug and play as getting a telephone.
This is the way I see it. As long as people will need a PC to connect to the Internet the Internet's growth will be limited by the PC. I remember in the mid-90's, before I knew a damn thing about computing and the Internet, people were telling me I needed the latest low-end machine loaded with Windows 95 to connect to the Internet. Then, that meant at least a $1500(CD) investment. In the end, I wound up connecting with a Toshiba T3200 286 lap top with a 40 MB hdd and 2 MB RAMand a 2400 baud modem. Got a shell dial-in account, and the Internet was available to me. My barrier to entry (to the Internet), instead of being $1500, turned out to be $250.
Oh, and I got to learn the basics of a Unix shell, and instead of getting entertainment, I got substance...
Good one:-)
Back in the 70's and 80's not many people had a home PC, but those that did knew something about what they were running. It seemed to do a lot of things then, and it does even more now.
But the PC has grown into an overblown Internet applicance, and it remains the biggest barrier to the Internet for most people. Getting on the Internet is enormously complicated when you think of how simple it should be. If it were only as simple as getting an appliance, plugging it in, entering a username and password, and you're on the 'Net - there would be many more using the Net.
At this point, the OS is irrelevant. Most people just can't get a handle on what an OS is, because they can't touch it or see it. IMHO, linux will be a success anywhere it doesn't get noticed. When people notice the OS, it's probably not a good thing.
I just don't see these tasks as sysadmin tasks, though they are sysadmn tasks in an office environment. The point is that some will claim that Windows is far easier to learn, and that it extends computer literacy. IMO, a literate computer user is a user that knows how to use and maintain their tools. The above tasks, and more I failed to mention, are tasks all Windows users should know. Yet the average Windows user usually feels hostage to their PC.
So, given that Windows is more expensive on all counts and does not lead to computer literacy by almost any measure, my question is this:
Why does EVERYONE have to use Windows?
Well.....
Good things are the gov gives hardware to people. This has got to be good. Bad thing is it "includes a provision for Windows", which will ensure that the poor will remain as blissfully computer illiterate as the next Windows user.
Windows users are not a computer literate bunch as a whole. I've supported at least a hundred Windows users in the past 2 years and I can tell you that most can't properly install software or drivers, back up files, create proper network shares, and are generally frustrated by the computer's inability to do what they it to do and live up to its promise of a simpler life. I don't blame them. The combination of the PC and Windows xxx just made their lives more complicated than it ever was.
This is not meant as a put-down to Windows users, but most people who work on a Windows box day in, day out know how to use email and the web, write in a word processor, and know one application very well. That's it.
So Belgian working jane with PC and Windows != computer literate working jane.
Also, no matter how you look at it, Windows costs far more to maintain. Virus scanners, Office, Outlook Express (costs a lot no matter how free it is) - all this software costs a lot of money. The lack of adequate security in Windows '98/ME. I've supported both linux workstations and all flavours of Windows, and I think I know both platforms well. Windows, Windows software, and Windows support costs bug bucks. It makes no sense to deploy Windows for this purpose. Doing so is simply creating a client lock-in.
A better solution is to at least allow them to dual-boot and give them choice. It's a simple matter to build a pc with hardware supported by both Windows and Linux, create an image, and then give the box away.
I know that today linux is as good and in some areas a better desktop OS than Windows. Office software for the home user is ready , at least 3 great browsers with more coming, mplayer once configured is a joy and plays more of my mpegs than Windows Media Player, Real is just as good and less obnoxious than on Windows/Mac, Evolution is just about there and is stable, PAN rocks for news, and the wealth of choice in the Desktop environment. Linux is there, no matter how much people don't want it to be.
The US never has and never will bully China as long as it can have the opportunity to exploit the market potential that exists there. The People's Republic of China has huge market potential, but has committed crimes against humanity on par with anything the Nazi's did in Germany.
The US and other Western nations have consistently turned a blind eye to Chinese human rights violations. If the Chinese have conformed to to the wishes of the US "anti-piracy" lobby, then it's because they're getting something else down the line, or have already.
I'd say that this post-cold war talk of a lone super power (the US) is erroneous. The only country in the world that can still pretty much do what it wants to without facing any consequences from the US is China. They have an understanding of where they can give and take from each other. Also, if the Chinese do relent to pressures from the US gov't and lobbies, they probably have something to gain.
The US are very much the bully here. The Ukraine are an easy target and I too admire their courage.
As far as I'm concerned, PAN is as good as it gets. It runs fine on a p-100 with 32MB RAM.
Why would you want to put DOS on a 1st generation pentium except to play the games of the day?
I think a light weight GUI like Windowmaker combined with something like XFCE is perfect on these kinds of machines. Dual-booting DOS and linux, OK, but a newbie's experience of the Internet on DOS just isn't as rich as you can get with linux.
I like WIndowmaker, and Enlightenment isn't bad on a 32MB low-end pentium either. For file manager. XFtree (part of XFCE), or even anyone of the above wm's combined with XFCE could be great for setting up a newbie user on a 1st gneration pentium. I've just done this for a friend....
No need to HEED the gcc 2.96 warning. --disable-gcc-checking will take care of that.
It works fine for me on Redhat 7.1 with gcc-2.96-85. Really, they just have a problem with Redhat period, and I don't think they think much of anyone using Redhat linux. I wonder what real consequences derive from using this version of gcc. I've had no problems with mplayer.
It's a great program once its up and running, though. Best video playback on linux.
I don' think so. I got my start at 33 working as a contracted sys admin in a small department in a large telecomm company. I had been working with Linux for a couple of years, took one of those sys admin career programs at a sub-par college after I left my dead end job at a bank, and I haven't looked back since.
Fact is, being 33 is probably a big advantage if you have the skills to go with it. There are many young, talented linux/unix whiz kids out there, I've learned from them, they've learned from me. Often, IT departments are full of these young people who are really smart about technical stuff, but are lacking good communication skills and "bedside manner". Being older and having more epxerience is a huge advantage in these environments.
Ideally, you enroll in some kind of college level program that gives you a solid background from which to start. The college I went to wasn't much good, they hardly taught Unix, with the emphaisis being entriely Novell and Windows NT. Out of 23 kids, I was the only one interested in Linux and Unix, I spent my spare time studying and learning linux while doing well in the college courses.
When I finished the course, I spent a hard winter on social assistance and hit the jackpot by the spring - a company had heard about me through a fellow student who applied for a job requiring Unix and NT knowledge and experience. This company had a contract with a small department within Nortel , and they were desperate to fill the position. So while I was pretty desperate, they were even more desperate, and I got the job.
The position I got was perfect for my skill set at the time. It was varied, required good communication and service skills, and I got to support HP-UX, NT, and Novell servers as well as Windows 95 (ARGGHH). The latter was the hardest part. I wasn't over my head with this position, but I got my feet wet.
I left that job to go on to a real linux position a year later, and there I learned tons about linux and networking and I never realized how little I knew until then. I worked side by side with a young man who had very little social graces, but knew tons about Unix since he'd been into it since he was 12. We taught each other a great deal in a year.
Certification can be important, but not essential once you've got the experience. It might be more important in this economic climate. I have university history, a technical diploma from a private college, and that's it.
It's been a great experience for me. I built a new career for myself by 33, after spending 11 years in a dead end job. You can do the same if you want to get out of teaching. In fact, the fact that you're a teacher will be of great help to you if you get into unix system administration.
Any way, all the best you!
I'd argue that with Linux, one has simplicity and ease of use. When has any non-technical user found it easy to install Windows?
My experience is they are usually being charged something like $75 an hour to install drivers and the OS and whatever else. It's simply false to suggest that non-technical users are able to install Windows with ease. They usually never install anything other than software.
I read the print version of this article, and while I enjoyed it, it has serious problems.
First, he suggests that everyone would be better off if Linux (or any other open-source alternative) just gave up on trying to create a competitive desktop to Windows. The situation with BE makes it clear that there can be no commerical alternative to Windows that can succeed because of the MS monopoly, so open source solutions are IMHO the only choice. He suggests that Microsoft's Windows is and will always be the only choice on the desktop for consumers, and that trying to work on alternatives is a waste of time. In other words, let's just accept that MS are a monopolist and not try anymore. Having seen where KDE has come from in the last 3 years, I beg to differ.
He also states that "The Linux desktop offers very little that could be considered plug-and-play.". He goes on to talk about the lack of drivers for scanners and digital cameras, not exactly the kind of peripherals everyone has with their PC. At any rate, I've installed hundreds of Windows and Linux PCs, and I can say with confidence that Linux is in fact more plug and play on hardware it supports than Windows is. With the 2.4 kernel, this situation is improved.
With Windows, I install the hardware, boot the machine, install the driver, reboot the machine. Hopefully it'll work, and to be fair usually does. With Linux, I install the hardware, boot the machine. No fiddling with obnoxious drivers, no reboots.
I've been very impressed with a distro like RH 7.1 in this regard. In my experience, a standard networked office PC is far easier to install with RH 7.1 than any Windows PC. Less time less hassle. As for digital cameras, I know a few who would beg to differ on their ease of installation in an OS like Win 98.
Anyway, the article hasn't convinced me it's time to cede to Windows. Since I've used and supported both, I'd say that Microsoft's success will continue depend on the bundling of software like Windows Media and IE, not on its superior hardware support.
To all you desktop developers out there - keep up the great work!
You're right. Who needs competition? Windows is the defacto desktop, let's keep it that way. Who cares if it costs thousands to equip a $1,000 PC with useful software, when an open-source desktop will cost you practically nothing apart from the hardware.
Shame on these people who dare to make a useful linux desktop.
Obviously, there are way more windows admins out there convincing IT depts there are no choices, and in shops heavy on Visual Basic and the like there may not be.
Fact is, there is no competition, because if there was, MS would not be pricing XP the way it is. And this time limit to get a decent upgrade price is probably because they're worried they may have competition early next year. The pace of development on linux and KDE ought to have them worried, but for now, they want their clients locked in for another few years
Good point. While we can't simply replicate, we also have to ensure compatibility. No point in making a word processor that can't open msword files in 2001. It's also important to ensure a quick learning curve, so that people don't have to spend hours learning how to write what they wrote in Word.
So while I agree that we have to get beyond imitating Windows software, it is necessary to "clone" to a certain extent.
I think Abiword is on the right path, as far as WYSIWYG editors go. It has most of the features one needs to write a document, and can open most Word docs. For most people, Abiword is all they need and it's not obnoxious like Word. It let's you get to the busniness of writing and doesn't tell you what to do.
As a sysadmin in a small company supporting about 30 nt workstations, and 15 linux servers and desktops, the licensing and support costs for the nt boxes is not justified by any tangible benefits. I can justify converting more than half the nt stations to linux on licensing cost saving alone, and I can demonstrate that in the majority of cases Linux will do whatever we need it to do.
This wasn't true on the desltop up until recently. Thanks to KDE 2, Opera, Linux 2.4.x, Abiword and Gnumeric (for opening 90% of xls and word files where I work), mplayer and dozens of other applications I'm neglecting to mention, Linux is just about there. 3 years ago it was another story...
I've had stability problems with Mandrake 8.0, Redhat 7.1 is simple to install and maintain and is very stable, and by all accounts Slackware 8.0 is very stable and not all that difficult to install. I would recommend Redhat 7.1 or Slackware. Mandrake 8.0 I've found far too unstable to recommend, though it's a joke to install.
And then when the austrlian samba developer does a talk on Samba at LISA or some such he'll get arrested. More craziness in the Land of the Free.
Funny, I've got a PII with a measly 128 MB RAM and KDE is pretty snappy. Certainly faster than Gnome, and when I want WindowMaker or Enlightenment I run those. Listening to you, you'd think that KDE needs more than a 1 GB of RAM to run well, when it runs just fine on 128. Give me a break....
RH 7.1 is fine with KDE. I've installed it on at least a dozen machines and had absolutely no problems. OTOH, Mandrake 8.0 has been very unstable on the machines I've installed it on, and XFfree usually crashes often. IMHO, RH 7.1 is a fine desktop distro.
Here, here! How can this possibly be victory? If the dismantling of the DMCA depends on the EFF we're all in trouble, American or not. The EFF sucking up to Adobe and giving them a plug to boot, while Adobe strongly supporting the DMCA and glad its working, but hey its out of their hands now. How can they not backdown? It's win-win for Adobe and everyone else loses.
The Land of the Free? I don't think so.
What a nice guy. You should realize the very language you use says it all about your level of intelligence
The poster above has the evidence. I didn't know, so obviously with the evidence everything is clear. It is a trademark violation. Relax, man.
Adobe Illustrator is trademarked. Illustrator isn't. Killustrator is not a trademark violation.
Yes, when I hear Illustrator. When you hear Word in a word processing context, do you think Microsoft Word? I guess Abiword is fair game for you? I suppose Microsoft would have a right to go after Kword and Abiword in that case?
How is this any different?