Thanks for some good answers, which really boil down to mostly "time is money" and that is certainly true in the professional world. The difference between free and even $100 per month or whatever is immaterial for a professional who depends on his/her tools to make a living. Saving half an hour or an hour of work a month will seemingly pay for Adobe products. (The point about workflow is really about saving time as well.)
For the rest of us, who do graphics as a sometimes/non-professional thing, free is good if we can do "most" things.
I must be getting in early as there is no whining so far about GIMP being far inferior to Photoshop.
What real world work can be done in Photoshop but not GIMP? I'm not trolling, this is a serious question... often obscure seldom-used features get compared... out there in the world of practical productive work, what are the true shortcomings?
In my own basic world, where I do stuff for the web and some (print) book covers, I've done fine with GIMP for quite a while.
Forced updates is the deal breaker for me. Given the stuff MS does these days (see the/. article on the "anniversary" update), I can't trust them not to undo whatever I've fixed, delete stuff, make stuff run that I don't want, etc. I have 8.1 on a separate (seldom booted) partition and even though it's crap, I haven't lost control over it, at least not yet.
I have to add that Emacs has had comprehensive web lookup since at least 2011 (the xah-lookup package). Your choice of Wikipedia, Google, and six different dictionaries, but surprisingly(!) the package maintainer didn't include Bing search.
You're saying that Bing searches, embedded in Word, help you write? I suppose they help you do research, which you can do equally well in your web browser. About the only thing special here is the citation feature. Embedded research isn't new; Google Docs has it, for one.
But yes, what to write is one of the hardest parts of writing. I'd argue that a word processor's role is to write your words down, not do research. It's the Unix philosophy: have a tool do one thing and do it well.
Office had all the function you needed back in Office 2000.
I could argue (at least up to a point) that WordStar 5.5 had everything you need for, you know, writing. And once you learned the key patterns, which made eminent sense in terms of finger motions, using a mouse would just slow you down (a lot). Try using Word without frequently lifting your hand off the keyboard to grab the mouse.
Word and the rest of MS Office have too much stuff that only adds confusion and bloat.
I've run Mint on a desktop with 512MB and it works, although it doesn't do things like YouTube streaming very well (and that's with a separate video card, not the stuff integrated in the motherboard). But otherwise it worked well enough, as you have found. Certainly good for stuff that's not graphics intensive.
Mint still runs well enough to be useful on my 7 year old Acer Netbook with 2 GB of RAM. Not stellar, but usable enough to do real work. I don't think Windows 10 would cut it on that old hardware:)
With two days to go on the "free" upgrade, I had thought about "upgrading" my seldom-used Windows 8.1 partition but this latest antic has guaranteed that I won't. MS, you don't own my computer no matter how powerful you think you are.
It sounds like the subtext here is that "Hillary claims to have lost them, then maybe the Russians can find them." Seems like more of a poke at Hillary and the administration than a truly-meant invitation to cybercrime.
But when Trump talks, you never know what to expect or what it means, if anything.
Name one of us who, when young, didn't screw up and make mistakes. I'm not going to be one of those geezers who says that "when I was young blah blah blah." As I said above, I think we had it better than today's kids, who have so much to cope with and sadly, less of a bright future.
On the contrary, I'm definitely "old" by most definitions and I feel for young people. They have it harder than I did in so many ways. You are only young once, and not for long; you deserve to enjoy it.
The stock market is insane. I never understood why the market would shoot up or down in a matter of hours based on some transient event. I blamed it on the stupidity of traders and their shortsightedness. That isn't completely wrong but then I read about our favorite people, hedge fund traders, having to make large short-term profit to stay alive. (It would be better if they all disappeared, I think, but that's another discussion.)
Why would Putin fear Clinton? He has beaten her repeatedly in the arena of foreign policy.
That's the part I don't get. Putin has to know from experience that he can walk all over Hillary. You may call Trump clownish but the thing is that clowns are unpredictable, and in the world of international politics, unpredictable can mean dangerous. Wouldn't Putin want someone whose actions he could predict and whom he would easily out-maneuver?
Remember that comments always lie. Still put them but don't trust them.
Actually this can work to your advantage when debugging. If the comment explains what is supposed to be going on, but that's not happening, it can help narrow things down.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for some good answers, which really boil down to mostly "time is money" and that is certainly true in the professional world. The difference between free and even $100 per month or whatever is immaterial for a professional who depends on his/her tools to make a living. Saving half an hour or an hour of work a month will seemingly pay for Adobe products. (The point about workflow is really about saving time as well.)
For the rest of us, who do graphics as a sometimes/non-professional thing, free is good if we can do "most" things.
Hipsters all use the most expensive Macs. They couldn't handle Linux. Or probably even Windows.
I must be getting in early as there is no whining so far about GIMP being far inferior to Photoshop.
What real world work can be done in Photoshop but not GIMP? I'm not trolling, this is a serious question ... often obscure seldom-used features get compared ... out there in the world of practical productive work, what are the true shortcomings?
In my own basic world, where I do stuff for the web and some (print) book covers, I've done fine with GIMP for quite a while.
Now I can get back to the normal update cycle without worrying about getting Windows 10 accidentally on my part.
Don't hold your breath on that one.
Forced updates is the deal breaker for me. Given the stuff MS does these days (see the /. article on the "anniversary" update), I can't trust them not to undo whatever I've fixed, delete stuff, make stuff run that I don't want, etc. I have 8.1 on a separate (seldom booted) partition and even though it's crap, I haven't lost control over it, at least not yet.
I think anyone who trusts Microsoft trusts both Hillary AND Donald.
Microsoft is slowly but, apparently, surely removing the control of your computer from you and giving it to Microsoft.
Are we sure we are talking about Microsoft? Funny, I thought that was the Government's job?
Is there a difference?
I have to add that Emacs has had comprehensive web lookup since at least 2011 (the xah-lookup package). Your choice of Wikipedia, Google, and six different dictionaries, but surprisingly(!) the package maintainer didn't include Bing search.
AbiWord is surprisingly good for its small size.
You're saying that Bing searches, embedded in Word, help you write? I suppose they help you do research, which you can do equally well in your web browser. About the only thing special here is the citation feature. Embedded research isn't new; Google Docs has it, for one.
But yes, what to write is one of the hardest parts of writing. I'd argue that a word processor's role is to write your words down, not do research. It's the Unix philosophy: have a tool do one thing and do it well.
Office had all the function you needed back in Office 2000.
I could argue (at least up to a point) that WordStar 5.5 had everything you need for, you know, writing. And once you learned the key patterns, which made eminent sense in terms of finger motions, using a mouse would just slow you down (a lot). Try using Word without frequently lifting your hand off the keyboard to grab the mouse.
Word and the rest of MS Office have too much stuff that only adds confusion and bloat.
I've run Mint on a desktop with 512MB and it works, although it doesn't do things like YouTube streaming very well (and that's with a separate video card, not the stuff integrated in the motherboard). But otherwise it worked well enough, as you have found. Certainly good for stuff that's not graphics intensive.
Mint still runs well enough to be useful on my 7 year old Acer Netbook with 2 GB of RAM. Not stellar, but usable enough to do real work. I don't think Windows 10 would cut it on that old hardware :)
In short - deal with it or run something else.
This and the rest of your post is quite accurate, whether we like it or not.
So I do run something else and am quite happy--- and productive--- doing so.
With two days to go on the "free" upgrade, I had thought about "upgrading" my seldom-used Windows 8.1 partition but this latest antic has guaranteed that I won't. MS, you don't own my computer no matter how powerful you think you are.
It sounds like the subtext here is that "Hillary claims to have lost them, then maybe the Russians can find them." Seems like more of a poke at Hillary and the administration than a truly-meant invitation to cybercrime.
But when Trump talks, you never know what to expect or what it means, if anything.
Name one of us who, when young, didn't screw up and make mistakes. I'm not going to be one of those geezers who says that "when I was young blah blah blah." As I said above, I think we had it better than today's kids, who have so much to cope with and sadly, less of a bright future.
He's just mad as all get out because they got caught.
Old people are annoyed by what young people do.
On the contrary, I'm definitely "old" by most definitions and I feel for young people. They have it harder than I did in so many ways. You are only young once, and not for long; you deserve to enjoy it.
The stock market is insane. I never understood why the market would shoot up or down in a matter of hours based on some transient event. I blamed it on the stupidity of traders and their shortsightedness. That isn't completely wrong but then I read about our favorite people, hedge fund traders, having to make large short-term profit to stay alive. (It would be better if they all disappeared, I think, but that's another discussion.)
The article is some of the most blatant pro-MS advertising I've seen on /. to date. If I want to read MS ads, there are plenty of other sources.
Why would Putin fear Clinton? He has beaten her repeatedly in the arena of foreign policy.
That's the part I don't get. Putin has to know from experience that he can walk all over Hillary. You may call Trump clownish but the thing is that clowns are unpredictable, and in the world of international politics, unpredictable can mean dangerous. Wouldn't Putin want someone whose actions he could predict and whom he would easily out-maneuver?
Remember that comments always lie. Still put them but don't trust them.
Actually this can work to your advantage when debugging. If the comment explains what is supposed to be going on, but that's not happening, it can help narrow things down.
Crappy jacks in crappy phones have their connections break away from the circuit board.
I use Monster Cable to connect my Bluetooth Sennheisers to my smartphone. Oh, wait ....