Instead of piping one program to another, you could try using abcde. Abcde calls several programs (ripper + cddb + id3 + encoder) using a shell script, and works pretty well. By default, it uses cdparanoia and ogg vorbis, so you should be happy with it:) At the end, you have properly-named-and-tagged music files in a named directory.
It's in Debian; if you're using something else, you should be able to find the site fairly easily.
If you want an editor which is basically the same as "edit" from MS-DOS, use pico from the PINE suite of programs. Red Hat definitely has an RPM for that, and it was probably installed without your realizing it. But eventually you should really learn to use a real editor; emacs and vim both have built-in tutorials to help you out.
If you ever want to find an RPM for something, go to http://rufus.w3.org, somewhat better known as http://rpmfind.net. I typed "acroread" into the search box, and got a few dozen hits back.
Of course, Debian users can simply type "apt-get install acroread", but hey...
Lastly, your comment "Who are they kidding with this tar.gz stuff anyway" really bothers me. I suppose that different people have different reasons for wanting to try out Linux. But I believe that one of those reasons should be that you'd like to get under the hood (eventually!), and understand some of the 30+ year culture behind Linux and UNIces in general. Understanding tar and gzip is a really basic, fundamental part of UNIX...one of the best parts about Linux is that you can dig in, get behind the scenes, and really USE it, sort of like the difference between riding a bus and driving a stick shift. In order to really appreciate it, I feel that one needs to understand the way UNIX works, and realize that there is in some cases no direct comparison to Windows.
Red Hat and friends may not have all of those things that you mentioned. However, this does not mean that "Linux" lacks them, because they ARE present in Debian.
Debian has the Debian Menu System. All window managers and packages use this system by default, so your default menu in X will always have all of the installed software.
The packaging system in Debian is amazing (to anyone other than FreeBSD users; I've heard good things about ports). Since all 4,000+ packages are actually contained in the Debian project, rather than "Contribs", strict guidelines can be enforced on how these packages interact with one another, exactly where files go, etc. This is why the above menu system is possible. It's also why all packages are configured with a nice interface at installation time, rather than "Oh, I wonder where it put the config files and what I have to do with them?" And there's the ever-popular guessing game of whether or not the updated RPM will replace your old config files with its own (moving your old ones to config.rpmsave and probably breaking your setup until you fix it), install new config files as config.dist, or do something else entirely. Debian gives you the choice by asking what you want to do when the package is installed (Keep your file, use the new one, see the differences).
Some people have pointed out to me that RPM-based distributions are capable of doing this. However, it doesn't really matter that they CAN, because, with the possible exception of Conectiva, they DON'T. I strongly disagree with those that say that Debian is more difficult to use than RedHat; Debian does also have nice GUI tools, and more importantly, the underlying structure is clean, consistent, and functional.
I used RedHat for a year (my first year with Linux), and we still use it at work. But everywhere where I have a choice, I use Debian. It's just easier.
I have used both PPCLinux and Debian on Macintosh hardware without difficulty. Since I believe that Debian is the better distro (mostly for the package system), and you've had no luck with LinuxPPC, I'd recommend Debian to you.
I have it installed on 2 ancient 68k macs, and my roomate runs Debian on a PPC as his main (bedroom) machine. The only time problems arise is when things like NES emulators make use of assembly code and can't run on the PPC processor, but other than that Debian has been completely usable and stable.
My only advice would be to "apt-get install aptitude" as soon as you have the basic installation finished, and never mention the word "dselect" again...aptitude is my preferred package selection GUI, but opinions (naturally) differ.
First, I'd like to let you know that you can use the same fonts (under Linux, at least) that you see under Windows. You merely have to steal the TT fonts from a Win* installation, and then you have 3 options:
1. Use xfstt, a font server which handles TT fonts
2. Use xfs-xtt, which handles all fonts
3. Use XFree86 4.01
I've been doing this for quite some time now, and it's great.
Secondly, I can't believe that someone who has presumably been using Unices for 10 years would be able to tolerate a graphical e-mail client. You speak of productivity, but I can get things done far more quickly in mutt than anyone can in Outlook. Also, by using/etc/mailcap, I can configure mutt to launch external apps for viewing Word docs, URLs, or graphics. And I won't start on the security/reliability problems of Outlook.
Keep in mind that IE has been in development for far longer than Mozilla has. No one seems to realize this. Remember how everything before IE4 totally SUCKED and was unusable? Right.
I could tab-switch between the objects on my desk, and they would float 2 feet above it in front of me one at a time...
Seriously, though, this is a good point. If we're going to have a new sort of WM with new dimensions of navigation, then we should ideally have new input devices along with it. The mouse/trackball/whatever is already really inadequate in 2D space (to me)...
I seem to remember some people having gotten a Nintendo Power Glove connected and working with a PC as an input device, though that might not be the best idea unless you could still type, and preferably de/equip it quickly and easily. I remember trying the Power Glove when it first came out, and it wasn't exactly the easiest thing to use (although the argument could be made that neither is a mouse unless you're used to it, which is the same argument I use about Windows vs $OS)
My personal approach has always been to instantly quite dselect as soon as it starts, without going to Select, or Install, or anything of that sort. I then update all my present packages to their latest versions with apt.
After that, I apt-get install aptitude, and use that for my package installation needs. I find it to be a far better tool than dselect.
2 people have already commented, "Why would MacOS X users want to use any X-windows apps?"
Right off the top of my head, I can think of one that would hit the spot: XMMS. I haven't found another MP3 player (including Quicktime) that behaves in any sort of sane fashion for MacOS, let alone a free one.
Oh, and then there's Abiword, GNUmeric, and the like...MacOS is one of the few platforms where no free MS-compatible stuff is available.
Perhaps those poor art students who cannot foot the bill for Photoshop (or steal it) would like to use the GIMP. Or those music majors who want a new experience would like to check out jMax.
That being said, I can easily see many Mac users raining down Holy Hellfire upon any application which doesn't use their native widget set...witness Mozilla as an example. Regardless, the excellent BSD foundation of MacOS X will make writing cross-platform apps that much easier, which is good for everyone.
But, I don't like the "real" UI. It's like NeXTStep, but with only one desktop...yes, DisplayPDF is really nice, and so is the integrated OpenGL, but I'm not the sort of person who needs either of those things, and I suspect the same is true of many current Linux users.
Additionally, the underlying core of the operating system (Darwin) might be open-source, but the rest is not. Please give me any sort of good reason why I would replace my Debian servers with ones running MacOS X.
On the other side of the fence, if Apple manages to get this right, then this could easily become the ideal desktop environment for non-technical users. I'll certainly recommend it over Windows* any day of the week. The trick is to get the balance between the traditionally strict Apple UI control, and the traditionally open, standards-compliant BSD underside...it will be really exciting if it turns out as well as I hope.
I'm glad you feel that way. But you forgot to post the link to the perfect, freely available web browser that you wrote from scratch in less than 2 years. Oh, what? There isn't one?
Well, you can always download the mozilla source and compile just the browser component. Or, you could check out a project like Galeon, which has already done the work for you.
Really, writing any decent sized app from scratch is not the easiest thing in the world, and web browsers are quite complex. Even if mozilla made their browser 100% standards-compliant, people would still complain since most of the web isn't that way, so they have to code for that, too. How long in the making is Internet Explorer? I don't suppose you'd care to remember how much it utterly SUCKED until version 3.0, with version 4.0 being the first that actually rivalled Netscape. And you know, it takes up at least the same amount of space as Mozilla, and it _is_ just a browser.
Roar. Sorry, but I've been using Mozilla since M9 and I love it.
I've been using Mozilla M17 since the day it came out, and like every other mozilla release, it just keeps getting better. However, I have heard nothing but horror stories about the Netscape6 Preview release2. So...don't use it. Stick with the real mozilla. If AOL wants to ruin the Netscape branded browser, then that can be their problem; I'm very happy with mozilla straight from the source.
#2 -- Use a journaling filesystem. I think that NT has one of those, while Linux does not use one by default (yet!). There are, however, no less than 4 available.
#3 -- When I install an application, I want to type "apt-get install foo", and have it check for dependencies, automatically fetch everything, and install it (as long as I OK any extra stuff that it finds it needs). I do not want to have to find the app, download it, unzip it, install it, reboot, remove the icons that it placed uninvited all over my menus and desktop...
#4 -- Yuck. Sorry, but I prefer E to everything else...more below...
#5 -- My roomates and I have rather large MP3 collections (yes, legal!), and we export them via NFS (behind a firewall!), so that we don't have to have any duplicates, and can play anything from anywhere in the house, any time. The machines need to be up for that...not to mention the web/mail servers we run.
#7 -- I grew up on Windows...I was excited when '98 was announced, and, umm, "aquired" Beta3 and sung it's praises to all my friends. But after using Linux for a while, there's no contest in my mind any more. I simply find that I can have the environment set up much more to my liking, and get things done more quickly and easily.
What about if you're a small startup, and should be spending money on other things than a big pile of servers? Or a nonprofit organization, which REALLY has better ways to spend their money?
Conversely, I could argue that I can buy 2 machines, one a little overpowered for the job, one a little underpowered (in the interests of budgetary concerns). I set up mon, fake, etc., and run all my services on the better machine...the smaller machine automatically takes over for it if it goes down, and sends me an email.
Linux already supports power management. I have it working on both of my IBM thinkpad laptops. I haven't bothered to get it working on my desktop, because it is running Linux...so why would I turn it off...but I do have it shut down the video and hard disks to save power.
W3m has support for frames, tables, and colours, just as links does. It also has support for SSL. My favourite part is that the award-winning (OK, my bias is showing:) vi key navigation works, as well as the arrow keys, and you can use it to launch your favorite editor (vi for me, obviously) for HTML text boxes (like Slashdot). If you're using it in X, you can even use a mouse.
W3m is used by several of the freshmeat.net staff for admin work (I normally use netscape, but have used w3m, and it performed admirably...and Daniel and Jeff, who use w3m, do a LOT more than I).
Tragically, if you are a RedHat user, you will probably have to check around a bit, as it doesn't seem to be a part of their standard distribution (WHY!?). I know that I did find an RPM for it that worked with RedHat. Debian has packages in the usual place, with and without SSL.
If you're still using lynx, you're really missing out.
Apt will do the 2nd thing for you; if you're installing/upgrading a package, then it will check for dependencies, and say "Do you want me to update this other stuff, or not do anything?".
However, you have a most valid point about the deleted files bit. Since RPM makes packages depend on files (sometimes), it will probably catch some of that. However,.deb packages depend on other packages, so that would go unnoticed (except that things would be broken:) Perhaps apt could be refined down to the file level? An interesting idea...the overhead/indexing would SUCK, so maybe it shouldn't do that by default.
OK, technically, apt is not the package manager for Debian. The package manager is dpkg. However, everyone uses apt because it makes things so very nice. The main reason is auto-resolution of dependencies. If I say:
apt-get install foo
Apt will check to make sure that I have the right versions of all the libraries that I need for package foo to function. If it needs other packages, it will ask for my permission to get those packages, too. It will then automatically download and install/upgrade the packages from the list of FTP/HTTP sites I've specified in/etc/apt/sources.list. If I already have package foo, it will see if there is an upgrade available
I prefer dpkg itself to RPM because (in my experience), dpkg has you configure the package at install time, instead of wondering "where did RPM put those config files?", going and finding them, etc. Of course, real control freaks like me will always do that anyway:) I also like the way it will mark certain files as "configuration files", and then ask you what to do when upgrading that package (replace with the new default file, keep yours, or see the differences). For ease of use, apt/dpkg can't be beat. The only similar thing is the much-revered BSD ports system. Of course, every package manager I've seen has an option to list the files installed by a package.
Of course, you do lose some control when you don't compile packages yourself. However, a good percentage of the time I wouldn't have changed anything anyway...and apt just makes it so easy to keep things up to date that it's too tempting.
Supposedly Mandrake now has something like apt for RPMs, but I haven't tried it.
"It's not going to grow significant any time in the next two years."
That's a pretty incredible statement, assuming that you've been paying attention to linux for the last 2 years. If it continues to expand at half the rate it has been, the number of Linux desktops will certainly be significant. Today's linux distributions are several orders of magnitude more ready for the desktop than RedHat 4.x...just imagine where we could be in 2 more years...
I, for one, can say that my university has many linux machines available in the computer labs, and since they also have a deal with MS, would definitely benefit from and make use of MSOffice for linux.
Debian has apt, which has several advantages over Windows update:
1. Debian is mirrored on several zillion servers, so if one is slow or down, you can simply choose another. Route to MS gets messed up? Too bad for you...please hang up and try again.
2. You can update ALL of your packages, barring those you've had to compile from source, which, considering the sheer volume of Debian packages, =="not bloody many".
3. You can use it from the command line, which is a good idea if you're updating X-Windows:) You could also use one of the "console GUI" tools such as capt or aptitude, or an X-based tool like GnomeApt.
4. You don't have to do anything evil like run ActiveX controls to use apt-get.
5. Apt-get will let you upgrade the ENTIRE SYSTEM AT ONCE. Try using Windows update to move from NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 -- without even rebooting:)
OK, the poster of the comment to which you replied took a bit too much of an extreme view, yes. However, all it takes is a glance at BUGTRAQ to verify his points #1 and #2. There is a nasty security hole involving IE at least once per month, generally far more frequently than that. Things like "remotely executing arbitrary code without prompting". In order for IE to be secure enough to use at all, you have to lock it down to the point where people can't log in to Hotmail (because you disabled ActiveScripting, which is Microsoft's made-up word for Javascript, so that remote attackers couldn't erase your hard drive at their leisure).
Now, another poster made the excellent point that this is only IE for Windows -- IE for Macintosh has far fewer of these problems. However, note that it is the combination of IE and Windows that is the problem; Netscape and Windows don't have nearly so many troubles. So, yes, it is partially the fault of IE. However, this is a bit of light for me, since that means IE for Linux wouldn't be as...special as IE for Windows.
As for point #3, Microsoft has made greater strides than Netscape of late in standards compliance. I commend them, and hope that they apply this behaviour to their networking protocols in the future...
Reason #4 was flamebait
Reason #5 is valid, and annoying. Not every page that won't show up is 404; there's a reason for all those different error messages. It's not as if it's a Blue Screen of Death, and noone without a book full of hex codes could possibly understand the number. Non-descriptive error codes are a product of Satan, and they're one of the things I dislike about MacOS (and IE, and Windows).
In fact, if Windows comes up without a mouse, it specifically states that "in order to connect a PS/2 mouse, you must restart your computer". Now, if you start up Windows with a PS/2 mouse, you MAY be able to hot-swap it OK; however, this may cause Windows to hang (I've had both occur).
Conversely, you can plug a PS/2 mouse into a running Linux system with no problems--at least, with every system/mouse combination I've seen (and I've seen a lot).
The default is for resolutions smaller than the maximum to have a virtual desktop, but this can be turned off, either while running xf86config or editing/etc/X11/XF86Config. Unfortunately, GUI tools such as Xconfigurator (used by RedHat, maybe others) hide this option from you.
Personally, I think that virtual desktop space is evil, too, especially when I have 3 (or more!) perfectly good other desktops to use (and anyway, the machines I use run at 1024 x 768 or higher).
In order to make Windows "functional" in my eyes, I have to go download a browser, an IRC client, an SSH client,a decent text editor, Cygwin tools, Litestep, latest drivers, etc....
Whereas in Debian, I just need to type apt-get install (package). I've gotten everything that way save a few programs, and if I were using Windows, I would have had to go download those packages too.
Windows has nothing comparable to apt-get, and Debian's huge package collection. I consider it a lot more annoying to make Windows useable.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahem:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/fai/
FAI stands for Fully Automatic Installation, and does what you describe for Debian systems.
Sotto la panca, la capra crepa
Instead of piping one program to another, you could try using abcde. Abcde calls several programs (ripper + cddb + id3 + encoder) using a shell script, and works pretty well. By default, it uses cdparanoia and ogg vorbis, so you should be happy with it :) At the end, you have properly-named-and-tagged music files in a named directory.
It's in Debian; if you're using something else, you should be able to find the site fairly easily.
Sotto la panca, la capra crepa
Well:
If you want an editor which is basically the same as "edit" from MS-DOS, use pico from the PINE suite of programs. Red Hat definitely has an RPM for that, and it was probably installed without your realizing it. But eventually you should really learn to use a real editor; emacs and vim both have built-in tutorials to help you out.
If you ever want to find an RPM for something, go to http://rufus.w3.org, somewhat better known as http://rpmfind.net. I typed "acroread" into the search box, and got a few dozen hits back.
Of course, Debian users can simply type "apt-get install acroread", but hey...
Lastly, your comment "Who are they kidding with this tar.gz stuff anyway" really bothers me. I suppose that different people have different reasons for wanting to try out Linux. But I believe that one of those reasons should be that you'd like to get under the hood (eventually!), and understand some of the 30+ year culture behind Linux and UNIces in general. Understanding tar and gzip is a really basic, fundamental part of UNIX...one of the best parts about Linux is that you can dig in, get behind the scenes, and really USE it, sort of like the difference between riding a bus and driving a stick shift. In order to really appreciate it, I feel that one needs to understand the way UNIX works, and realize that there is in some cases no direct comparison to Windows.
Sotto la panca, la capra crepa
Sorry, but no.
Red Hat and friends may not have all of those things that you mentioned. However, this does not mean that "Linux" lacks them, because they ARE present in Debian.
Debian has the Debian Menu System. All window managers and packages use this system by default, so your default menu in X will always have all of the installed software.
The packaging system in Debian is amazing (to anyone other than FreeBSD users; I've heard good things about ports). Since all 4,000+ packages are actually contained in the Debian project, rather than "Contribs", strict guidelines can be enforced on how these packages interact with one another, exactly where files go, etc. This is why the above menu system is possible. It's also why all packages are configured with a nice interface at installation time, rather than "Oh, I wonder where it put the config files and what I have to do with them?" And there's the ever-popular guessing game of whether or not the updated RPM will replace your old config files with its own (moving your old ones to config.rpmsave and probably breaking your setup until you fix it), install new config files as config.dist, or do something else entirely. Debian gives you the choice by asking what you want to do when the package is installed (Keep your file, use the new one, see the differences).
Some people have pointed out to me that RPM-based distributions are capable of doing this. However, it doesn't really matter that they CAN, because, with the possible exception of Conectiva, they DON'T. I strongly disagree with those that say that Debian is more difficult to use than RedHat; Debian does also have nice GUI tools, and more importantly, the underlying structure is clean, consistent, and functional.
I used RedHat for a year (my first year with Linux), and we still use it at work. But everywhere where I have a choice, I use Debian. It's just easier.
Sotto la panca, la capra crepa
I have used both PPCLinux and Debian on Macintosh hardware without difficulty. Since I believe that Debian is the better distro (mostly for the package system), and you've had no luck with LinuxPPC, I'd recommend Debian to you.
I have it installed on 2 ancient 68k macs, and my roomate runs Debian on a PPC as his main (bedroom) machine. The only time problems arise is when things like NES emulators make use of assembly code and can't run on the PPC processor, but other than that Debian has been completely usable and stable.
My only advice would be to "apt-get install aptitude" as soon as you have the basic installation finished, and never mention the word "dselect" again...aptitude is my preferred package selection GUI, but opinions (naturally) differ.
Sotto la panca, la capra crepa
First, I'd like to let you know that you can use the same fonts (under Linux, at least) that you see under Windows. You merely have to steal the TT fonts from a Win* installation, and then you have 3 options:
/etc/mailcap, I can configure mutt to launch external apps for viewing Word docs, URLs, or graphics. And I won't start on the security/reliability problems of Outlook.
1. Use xfstt, a font server which handles TT fonts
2. Use xfs-xtt, which handles all fonts
3. Use XFree86 4.01
I've been doing this for quite some time now, and it's great.
Secondly, I can't believe that someone who has presumably been using Unices for 10 years would be able to tolerate a graphical e-mail client. You speak of productivity, but I can get things done far more quickly in mutt than anyone can in Outlook. Also, by using
Keep in mind that IE has been in development for far longer than Mozilla has. No one seems to realize this. Remember how everything before IE4 totally SUCKED and was unusable? Right.
Sotto la panca, la capra crepa
I could tab-switch between the objects on my desk, and they would float 2 feet above it in front of me one at a time...
Seriously, though, this is a good point. If we're going to have a new sort of WM with new dimensions of navigation, then we should ideally have new input devices along with it. The mouse/trackball/whatever is already really inadequate in 2D space (to me)...
I seem to remember some people having gotten a Nintendo Power Glove connected and working with a PC as an input device, though that might not be the best idea unless you could still type, and preferably de/equip it quickly and easily. I remember trying the Power Glove when it first came out, and it wasn't exactly the easiest thing to use (although the argument could be made that neither is a mouse unless you're used to it, which is the same argument I use about Windows vs $OS)
Sotto la panca, la capra crepa
My personal approach has always been to instantly quite dselect as soon as it starts, without going to Select, or Install, or anything of that sort. I then update all my present packages to their latest versions with apt.
After that, I apt-get install aptitude, and use that for my package installation needs. I find it to be a far better tool than dselect.
2 people have already commented, "Why would MacOS X users want to use any X-windows apps?"
Right off the top of my head, I can think of one that would hit the spot: XMMS. I haven't found another MP3 player (including Quicktime) that behaves in any sort of sane fashion for MacOS, let alone a free one.
Oh, and then there's Abiword, GNUmeric, and the like...MacOS is one of the few platforms where no free MS-compatible stuff is available.
Perhaps those poor art students who cannot foot the bill for Photoshop (or steal it) would like to use the GIMP. Or those music majors who want a new experience would like to check out jMax.
That being said, I can easily see many Mac users raining down Holy Hellfire upon any application which doesn't use their native widget set...witness Mozilla as an example. Regardless, the excellent BSD foundation of MacOS X will make writing cross-platform apps that much easier, which is good for everyone.
But, I don't like the "real" UI. It's like NeXTStep, but with only one desktop...yes, DisplayPDF is really nice, and so is the integrated OpenGL, but I'm not the sort of person who needs either of those things, and I suspect the same is true of many current Linux users.
Additionally, the underlying core of the operating system (Darwin) might be open-source, but the rest is not. Please give me any sort of good reason why I would replace my Debian servers with ones running MacOS X.
On the other side of the fence, if Apple manages to get this right, then this could easily become the ideal desktop environment for non-technical users. I'll certainly recommend it over Windows* any day of the week. The trick is to get the balance between the traditionally strict Apple UI control, and the traditionally open, standards-compliant BSD underside...it will be really exciting if it turns out as well as I hope.
I'm glad you feel that way. But you forgot to post the link to the perfect, freely available web browser that you wrote from scratch in less than 2 years. Oh, what? There isn't one?
Well, you can always download the mozilla source and compile just the browser component. Or, you could check out a project like Galeon, which has already done the work for you.
Really, writing any decent sized app from scratch is not the easiest thing in the world, and web browsers are quite complex. Even if mozilla made their browser 100% standards-compliant, people would still complain since most of the web isn't that way, so they have to code for that, too. How long in the making is Internet Explorer? I don't suppose you'd care to remember how much it utterly SUCKED until version 3.0, with version 4.0 being the first that actually rivalled Netscape. And you know, it takes up at least the same amount of space as Mozilla, and it _is_ just a browser.
Roar. Sorry, but I've been using Mozilla since M9 and I love it.
Seriously.
I've been using Mozilla M17 since the day it came out, and like every other mozilla release, it just keeps getting better. However, I have heard nothing but horror stories about the Netscape6 Preview release2. So...don't use it. Stick with the real mozilla. If AOL wants to ruin the Netscape branded browser, then that can be their problem; I'm very happy with mozilla straight from the source.
#2 -- Use a journaling filesystem. I think that NT has one of those, while Linux does not use one by default (yet!). There are, however, no less than 4 available.
#3 -- When I install an application, I want to type "apt-get install foo", and have it check for dependencies, automatically fetch everything, and install it (as long as I OK any extra stuff that it finds it needs). I do not want to have to find the app, download it, unzip it, install it, reboot, remove the icons that it placed uninvited all over my menus and desktop...
#4 -- Yuck. Sorry, but I prefer E to everything else...more below...
#5 -- My roomates and I have rather large MP3 collections (yes, legal!), and we export them via NFS (behind a firewall!), so that we don't have to have any duplicates, and can play anything from anywhere in the house, any time. The machines need to be up for that...not to mention the web/mail servers we run.
#7 -- I grew up on Windows...I was excited when '98 was announced, and, umm, "aquired" Beta3 and sung it's praises to all my friends. But after using Linux for a while, there's no contest in my mind any more. I simply find that I can have the environment set up much more to my liking, and get things done more quickly and easily.
What about if you're a small startup, and should be spending money on other things than a big pile of servers? Or a nonprofit organization, which REALLY has better ways to spend their money?
Conversely, I could argue that I can buy 2 machines, one a little overpowered for the job, one a little underpowered (in the interests of budgetary concerns). I set up mon, fake, etc., and run all my services on the better machine...the smaller machine automatically takes over for it if it goes down, and sends me an email.
Linux already supports power management. I have it working on both of my IBM thinkpad laptops. I haven't bothered to get it working on my desktop, because it is running Linux...so why would I turn it off...but I do have it shut down the video and hard disks to save power.
W3m has support for frames, tables, and colours, just as links does. It also has support for SSL. My favourite part is that the award-winning (OK, my bias is showing :) vi key navigation works, as well as the arrow keys, and you can use it to launch your favorite editor (vi for me, obviously) for HTML text boxes (like Slashdot). If you're using it in X, you can even use a mouse.
W3m is used by several of the freshmeat.net staff for admin work (I normally use netscape, but have used w3m, and it performed admirably...and Daniel and Jeff, who use w3m, do a LOT more than I).
Tragically, if you are a RedHat user, you will probably have to check around a bit, as it doesn't seem to be a part of their standard distribution (WHY!?). I know that I did find an RPM for it that worked with RedHat. Debian has packages in the usual place, with and without SSL.
If you're still using lynx, you're really missing out.
Apt will do the 2nd thing for you; if you're installing/upgrading a package, then it will check for dependencies, and say "Do you want me to update this other stuff, or not do anything?".
.deb packages depend on other packages, so that would go unnoticed (except that things would be broken :) Perhaps apt could be refined down to the file level? An interesting idea...the overhead/indexing would SUCK, so maybe it shouldn't do that by default.
However, you have a most valid point about the deleted files bit. Since RPM makes packages depend on files (sometimes), it will probably catch some of that. However,
OK, technically, apt is not the package manager for Debian. The package manager is dpkg. However, everyone uses apt because it makes things so very nice. The main reason is auto-resolution of dependencies. If I say:
/etc/apt/sources.list. If I already have package foo, it will see if there is an upgrade available
:) I also like the way it will mark certain files as "configuration files", and then ask you what to do when upgrading that package (replace with the new default file, keep yours, or see the differences). For ease of use, apt/dpkg can't be beat. The only similar thing is the much-revered BSD ports system. Of course, every package manager I've seen has an option to list the files installed by a package.
apt-get install foo
Apt will check to make sure that I have the right versions of all the libraries that I need for package foo to function. If it needs other packages, it will ask for my permission to get those packages, too. It will then automatically download and install/upgrade the packages from the list of FTP/HTTP sites I've specified in
I prefer dpkg itself to RPM because (in my experience), dpkg has you configure the package at install time, instead of wondering "where did RPM put those config files?", going and finding them, etc. Of course, real control freaks like me will always do that anyway
Of course, you do lose some control when you don't compile packages yourself. However, a good percentage of the time I wouldn't have changed anything anyway...and apt just makes it so easy to keep things up to date that it's too tempting.
Supposedly Mandrake now has something like apt for RPMs, but I haven't tried it.
"It's not going to grow significant any time in the next two years."
That's a pretty incredible statement, assuming that you've been paying attention to linux for the last 2 years. If it continues to expand at half the rate it has been, the number of Linux desktops will certainly be significant. Today's linux distributions are several orders of magnitude more ready for the desktop than RedHat 4.x...just imagine where we could be in 2 more years...
I, for one, can say that my university has many linux machines available in the computer labs, and since they also have a deal with MS, would definitely benefit from and make use of MSOffice for linux.
It blows the MS mechanism into tiny chunks.
:) You could also use one of the "console GUI" tools such as capt or aptitude, or an X-based tool like GnomeApt.
:)
Debian has apt, which has several advantages over Windows update:
1. Debian is mirrored on several zillion servers, so if one is slow or down, you can simply choose another. Route to MS gets messed up? Too bad for you...please hang up and try again.
2. You can update ALL of your packages, barring those you've had to compile from source, which, considering the sheer volume of Debian packages, =="not bloody many".
3. You can use it from the command line, which is a good idea if you're updating X-Windows
4. You don't have to do anything evil like run ActiveX controls to use apt-get.
5. Apt-get will let you upgrade the ENTIRE SYSTEM AT ONCE. Try using Windows update to move from NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 -- without even rebooting
OK, the poster of the comment to which you replied took a bit too much of an extreme view, yes. However, all it takes is a glance at BUGTRAQ to verify his points #1 and #2. There is a nasty security hole involving IE at least once per month, generally far more frequently than that. Things like "remotely executing arbitrary code without prompting". In order for IE to be secure enough to use at all, you have to lock it down to the point where people can't log in to Hotmail (because you disabled ActiveScripting, which is Microsoft's made-up word for Javascript, so that remote attackers couldn't erase your hard drive at their leisure).
Now, another poster made the excellent point that this is only IE for Windows -- IE for Macintosh has far fewer of these problems. However, note that it is the combination of IE and Windows that is the problem; Netscape and Windows don't have nearly so many troubles. So, yes, it is partially the fault of IE. However, this is a bit of light for me, since that means IE for Linux wouldn't be as...special as IE for Windows.
As for point #3, Microsoft has made greater strides than Netscape of late in standards compliance. I commend them, and hope that they apply this behaviour to their networking protocols in the future...
Reason #4 was flamebait
Reason #5 is valid, and annoying. Not every page that won't show up is 404; there's a reason for all those different error messages. It's not as if it's a Blue Screen of Death, and noone without a book full of hex codes could possibly understand the number. Non-descriptive error codes are a product of Satan, and they're one of the things I dislike about MacOS (and IE, and Windows).
In fact, if Windows comes up without a mouse, it specifically states that "in order to connect a PS/2 mouse, you must restart your computer". Now, if you start up Windows with a PS/2 mouse, you MAY be able to hot-swap it OK; however, this may cause Windows to hang (I've had both occur).
Conversely, you can plug a PS/2 mouse into a running Linux system with no problems--at least, with every system/mouse combination I've seen (and I've seen a lot).
The default is for resolutions smaller than the maximum to have a virtual desktop, but this can be turned off, either while running xf86config or editing /etc/X11/XF86Config. Unfortunately, GUI tools such as Xconfigurator (used by RedHat, maybe others) hide this option from you.
Personally, I think that virtual desktop space is evil, too, especially when I have 3 (or more!) perfectly good other desktops to use (and anyway, the machines I use run at 1024 x 768 or higher).
Sorry, but freshmeat doesn't announce Windows software :)
Ahem.
In order to make Windows "functional" in my eyes, I have to go download a browser, an IRC client, an SSH client,a decent text editor, Cygwin tools, Litestep, latest drivers, etc....
Whereas in Debian, I just need to type apt-get install (package). I've gotten everything that way save a few programs, and if I were using Windows, I would have had to go download those packages too.
Windows has nothing comparable to apt-get, and Debian's huge package collection. I consider it a lot more annoying to make Windows useable.