No matter how many times Linux people insist that a distro is perfectly usable by normal people, it's totally inevitable that you'll have to drop to a shell prompt sooner or later to install something or get it working. Any time that happens, it's a function of "not being able to."
You make a good point, and perhaps those of us who are long-time Linux users underestimate or don't remember how long it took us to become proficient.
But... when something doesn't work on Windows... does the "normal" user know what to do? They don't drop to the shell because they don't know what that is and, on Windows, they would have real fun even trying to find out how to get a shell prompt.
"But I do submit that quite a number of cases in which the claim is made that the job can't get done on Linux is more a function of not wanting to, rather than not being able to."
White Sands Missile Range donated a DEC System 10 to my school district. Learned assembly on that my senior year, then went on to IBM/360 assembly at the local college the same year. So I learned valuable skills that I never again used.
Ah, but I think you did use those skills again, just not that specific variant of assembler. What you learned was how things work and how to make things work. Programming assembler is rigorous and difficult and requires precision, attention to detail, and patience. I am certain you carried those skills forward.
For me, learning at the assembler level very early on built a great foundation for learning other things.
Are you suggesting I should install Linux for... what?
I can't answer that question for you, but for me, the answer is "to get all my work done" as I've in fact done for 15+ years. Now, 15 years ago, it was much more of a struggle. Today, there is so much software for Linux that I seldom have to look very far. Office suite, graphics, audio processing, typesetting and desktop publishing, OCR, and on and on--- everything I need to do what I do.
I know there are specialized apps and games that don't run on Linux, and I know that Wine and even VMWare are not always good solutions. I know that some people legitimately need to run Windows, or simply want to run Windows.
But I do submit that the number of cases in which the claim is made that the job can't get done on Linux is more a function of not wanting to, rather than not being able to.
I went to a summer program in 1966 (!) where I learned Fortran II and then IBM 1620 assembler. I think the computer had 2k of core memory or something. Those IBM 026 keypunch machines were really something.
Yes, that's what someone who knows what's going on would do.
But I think the point that people on slashdot (a group that has a clue about these things) sometimes forget is that the average user doesn't really have a clue about technical details. They want to turn on their computer and they want it to work. They don't want to have to learn about internal workings, even at a shallow level. And I suggest that they are not wrong about this. They should have an expectation that their computer works for them just like their car works for them. Yes, they need to learn to drive, but they don't need to learn how to fix the engine.
Microsoft is taking full advantage of the average user's lack of knowledge--- knowledge that they shouldn't rightfully be expected to have in the first place--- and it strikes me as immoral to say the least.
I think these stories need to be kept in the public's eye. But the only thing that could possibly change is people's behavior, and that's not so likely, no matter how outrageous the provocations become.
What is absolutely not going to happen is Microsoft bettering their behavior. They don't care, they don't have to care, and they're not going to care. Ever.
How nice for you that your wife is the most basic of users. She would probably be fine with a tablet by the sounds of it.
A tablet may indeed be a valid choice for her, perhaps with a Bluetooth keyboard. However, I submit that a large percentage of users are also "basic" users, for whom a Linux desktop would be just fine.
I love linux, i run linux servers, but linux on the desktop does not work for everyone!!!!!!!!!!
I don't argue that point at all. However, not working for everyone doesn't negate the idea that it works for many.
Indeed, there are mission-critical Windows-only applications that make running Windows a necessity. But let's distinguish between "can't" and "don't want to." Many people say they can't use, for instance, LibreOffice when actually they just don't want to. And that's fine, people should be able to do whatever they wish. Such a use case, though, isn't a matter of being "unable" to use Linux, just unwilling.
... how to answer the question "the mail doesn't work anymore". For this same reason please don't suggest that I "switch to Linux" because that doesn't solve my problem
I understand what you're saying and why you're saying it. But I will offer a counter-example. Whether or not it's valid for your situation, I of course can't say.
My wife is not particularly computer literate and has a habit of clicking on anything and everything. So some little while ago I moved her to Linux Mint. I made sure she had her bookmarks and browser settings... and that was just about it. She has no idea that there is Linux and there is Windows and that they are different. She has simple needs, all of them accomplished within the browser. That is true of many other "basic" users (and it's why Chromebooks can work).
I did have to spend a little time configuring. But that was once. There is very little support needed other than doing updates every so often.
It's about being able to live like a human, without having a system bent over in tripping you as you try to live your life. It's living without being surrounded by ignorant assholes who 1) assume the worst of you, and 2) act upon those assumptions in such ways that 3) have actual, measurable negative effects in your life.
I won't get into "dictionary definition" debates but to me, what you're talking about are fundamental rights which should be denied to no human being, not anywhere and not ever. I suppose one interpretation of the fact that I mostly had these rights is that I had "privilege" but I think it's more accurate to say that others were denied their due while I mostly received it.
It's the opposite of what I was getting at, though. My claim is that no one ever gave me anything. Your claim is that no one ever took anything away. I think we may both be mostly right.
How was the OP racist? Here we have one white dude replying to another white dude about what he thinks about privilege. He was not condescending or insulting. If he was racist, quote what he said. Call him out with specifics. Prove him wrong.
Thank you for this. I indeed had absolutely no intent of being racist or minimizing or denying the difficulties faced by others. I certainly believe everyone should get a fair chance. I was just stating that I had to work hard to get ahead and that I didn't feel or sense any sort of privilege during all those years of effort and material deprivation. Others certainly had it worse, but that doesn't mean I had it easy.
Paypal can be hard to work with. As my own example, once I received $3,000, which was a loan repayment from a relative, and PayPal decided to "investigate." Whatever they did took over a week after which they cancelled the transaction with no reason given. I can understand security and prudence, but they could at least communicate (they did not answer my requests for an explanation).
I realize I haven't been around here as long as many, but it seems to be quite a number of years now, although I can't seem to locate the exact date that I joined. I know 1,444,407 is not exactly a low user number.
I've certainly been here long enough to know that in past years, stories for/. seemed in general more relevant. This is not intended to be my source for general news.
Let's hear it for Fortran, COBOL, PL/1. I don't use them any longer but in their time, they got the job done.
If legacy code still works and is maintainable, there needs to be a good economic case for conversion, otherwise leave it alone. Sometimes an old language will only run on very old hardware, but that certainly isn't true for COBOL.
Converting to any of the "kewl" modern languages, just for the sake of getting away from COBOL, hardly makes sense, and you'll end up with something that is probably slower, less functional, and surely less reliable... and with an uncertain future. Who knows where all the "kewl" languages will go? I doubt they will all survive.
No. It is you who decide to aquire a license vs. buying it. You can always tell the corporation to fuck off and chose the printed version/CD.
Which I often do. It's hilarious to look on Amazon for a book I want, and sometimes find the ebook selling for $11.99 while a used paper copy is $4.00 including shipping.
With a $17.99 postage and handling fee.
You must not buy used books from Amazon. Their fee for postage and handling on used books is uniformly $3.99. Very often books are available for $0.01 and the seller makes about a dollar on shipping.
... 99.9% of the people who are having Win10 shoved down their throats don't even know what Linux is, let alone would even consider switching to it as a desktop OS.
Unfortunately you're right. Most people have no clue what's going on, and are easily exploited. Microsoft takes full advantage of that.
No. It is you who decide to aquire a license vs. buying it. You can always tell the corporation to fuck off and chose the printed version/CD.
Which I often do. It's hilarious to look on Amazon for a book I want, and sometimes find the ebook selling for $11.99 while a used paper copy is $4.00 including shipping.
If selling copies were legal, it would make it impossible to sell copies of digital goods, as there's always be someone willing to sell for cheaper and the race to the bottom would make everything free.
Not if people actually sold the digital goods, meaning, they didn't keep a copy of their own, and they only sold it once. Then it's quite like any other used item sale. (It's not exactly alike, of course.)
Now if you're going to counter that people wouldn't do a legal resale as I specified above, I'll counter that by saying a law against resale won't stop those people either.
Slashdot Mirror
No matter how many times Linux people insist that a distro is perfectly usable by normal people, it's totally inevitable that you'll have to drop to a shell prompt sooner or later to install something or get it working. Any time that happens, it's a function of "not being able to."
You make a good point, and perhaps those of us who are long-time Linux users underestimate or don't remember how long it took us to become proficient.
But ... when something doesn't work on Windows ... does the "normal" user know what to do? They don't drop to the shell because they don't know what that is and, on Windows, they would have real fun even trying to find out how to get a shell prompt.
Correct that last sentence!
"But I do submit that quite a number of cases in which the claim is made that the job can't get done on Linux is more a function of not wanting to, rather than not being able to."
White Sands Missile Range donated a DEC System 10 to my school district. Learned assembly on that my senior year, then went on to IBM/360 assembly at the local college the same year. So I learned valuable skills that I never again used.
Ah, but I think you did use those skills again, just not that specific variant of assembler. What you learned was how things work and how to make things work. Programming assembler is rigorous and difficult and requires precision, attention to detail, and patience. I am certain you carried those skills forward.
For me, learning at the assembler level very early on built a great foundation for learning other things.
Are you suggesting I should install Linux for... what?
I can't answer that question for you, but for me, the answer is "to get all my work done" as I've in fact done for 15+ years. Now, 15 years ago, it was much more of a struggle. Today, there is so much software for Linux that I seldom have to look very far. Office suite, graphics, audio processing, typesetting and desktop publishing, OCR, and on and on--- everything I need to do what I do.
I know there are specialized apps and games that don't run on Linux, and I know that Wine and even VMWare are not always good solutions. I know that some people legitimately need to run Windows, or simply want to run Windows.
But I do submit that the number of cases in which the claim is made that the job can't get done on Linux is more a function of not wanting to, rather than not being able to.
I went to a summer program in 1966 (!) where I learned Fortran II and then IBM 1620 assembler. I think the computer had 2k of core memory or something. Those IBM 026 keypunch machines were really something.
Yes, that's what someone who knows what's going on would do.
But I think the point that people on slashdot (a group that has a clue about these things) sometimes forget is that the average user doesn't really have a clue about technical details. They want to turn on their computer and they want it to work. They don't want to have to learn about internal workings, even at a shallow level. And I suggest that they are not wrong about this. They should have an expectation that their computer works for them just like their car works for them. Yes, they need to learn to drive, but they don't need to learn how to fix the engine.
Microsoft is taking full advantage of the average user's lack of knowledge--- knowledge that they shouldn't rightfully be expected to have in the first place--- and it strikes me as immoral to say the least.
I think these stories need to be kept in the public's eye. But the only thing that could possibly change is people's behavior, and that's not so likely, no matter how outrageous the provocations become.
What is absolutely not going to happen is Microsoft bettering their behavior. They don't care, they don't have to care, and they're not going to care. Ever.
How nice for you that your wife is the most basic of users. She would probably be fine with a tablet by the sounds of it.
A tablet may indeed be a valid choice for her, perhaps with a Bluetooth keyboard. However, I submit that a large percentage of users are also "basic" users, for whom a Linux desktop would be just fine.
I love linux, i run linux servers, but linux on the desktop does not work for everyone!!!!!!!!!!
I don't argue that point at all. However, not working for everyone doesn't negate the idea that it works for many.
Indeed, there are mission-critical Windows-only applications that make running Windows a necessity. But let's distinguish between "can't" and "don't want to." Many people say they can't use, for instance, LibreOffice when actually they just don't want to. And that's fine, people should be able to do whatever they wish. Such a use case, though, isn't a matter of being "unable" to use Linux, just unwilling.
I understand what you're saying and why you're saying it. But I will offer a counter-example. Whether or not it's valid for your situation, I of course can't say.
My wife is not particularly computer literate and has a habit of clicking on anything and everything. So some little while ago I moved her to Linux Mint. I made sure she had her bookmarks and browser settings ... and that was just about it. She has no idea that there is Linux and there is Windows and that they are different. She has simple needs, all of them accomplished within the browser. That is true of many other "basic" users (and it's why Chromebooks can work).
I did have to spend a little time configuring. But that was once. There is very little support needed other than doing updates every so often.
Yet another Linux boot issue causing problems, once again proving open source is amateur hour.
Yes. Fortunately something like that would never happen when, say, being forced to upgrade to Windows 10.
It's about being able to live like a human, without having a system bent over in tripping you as you try to live your life. It's living without being surrounded by ignorant assholes who 1) assume the worst of you, and 2) act upon those assumptions in such ways that 3) have actual, measurable negative effects in your life.
I won't get into "dictionary definition" debates but to me, what you're talking about are fundamental rights which should be denied to no human being, not anywhere and not ever. I suppose one interpretation of the fact that I mostly had these rights is that I had "privilege" but I think it's more accurate to say that others were denied their due while I mostly received it.
It's the opposite of what I was getting at, though. My claim is that no one ever gave me anything. Your claim is that no one ever took anything away. I think we may both be mostly right.
How was the OP racist? Here we have one white dude replying to another white dude about what he thinks about privilege. He was not condescending or insulting. If he was racist, quote what he said. Call him out with specifics. Prove him wrong.
Thank you for this. I indeed had absolutely no intent of being racist or minimizing or denying the difficulties faced by others. I certainly believe everyone should get a fair chance. I was just stating that I had to work hard to get ahead and that I didn't feel or sense any sort of privilege during all those years of effort and material deprivation. Others certainly had it worse, but that doesn't mean I had it easy.
Paypal can be hard to work with. As my own example, once I received $3,000, which was a loan repayment from a relative, and PayPal decided to "investigate." Whatever they did took over a week after which they cancelled the transaction with no reason given. I can understand security and prudence, but they could at least communicate (they did not answer my requests for an explanation).
It People should get over their OS obsession and focus on doing some actual work.
I haven't obsessed over an OS since I installed Linux years and years ago; that decision enabled me to focus on actual work.
Microsoft managers train with the airlines.
the only message poor white people hear from the left is... you have white privilege.
I grew up as a poor white kid. The only privilege I had was what I worked for.
Sure, now tell me I had privilege but I just didn't know it ... you're right (about not knowing it). I saw no evidence of it in any part of my life.
Looks like I joined in early 2009, something over 7 years ago, based on the date of my first comment posted.
I realize I haven't been around here as long as many, but it seems to be quite a number of years now, although I can't seem to locate the exact date that I joined. I know 1,444,407 is not exactly a low user number.
I've certainly been here long enough to know that in past years, stories for /. seemed in general more relevant. This is not intended to be my source for general news.
Really, why is this on /. ? What's next, results of the pie eating contest?
Let's hear it for Fortran, COBOL, PL/1. I don't use them any longer but in their time, they got the job done.
If legacy code still works and is maintainable, there needs to be a good economic case for conversion, otherwise leave it alone. Sometimes an old language will only run on very old hardware, but that certainly isn't true for COBOL.
Converting to any of the "kewl" modern languages, just for the sake of getting away from COBOL, hardly makes sense, and you'll end up with something that is probably slower, less functional, and surely less reliable ... and with an uncertain future. Who knows where all the "kewl" languages will go? I doubt they will all survive.
No. It is you who decide to aquire a license vs. buying it. You can always tell the corporation to fuck off and chose the printed version/CD.
Which I often do. It's hilarious to look on Amazon for a book I want, and sometimes find the ebook selling for $11.99 while a used paper copy is $4.00 including shipping.
With a $17.99 postage and handling fee.
You must not buy used books from Amazon. Their fee for postage and handling on used books is uniformly $3.99. Very often books are available for $0.01 and the seller makes about a dollar on shipping.
Unfortunately you're right. Most people have no clue what's going on, and are easily exploited. Microsoft takes full advantage of that.
It'd cost more to make the photocopies than top buy a new copy of the book
Not at all. It costs me an hour of my time, no more, and then OCR is a free benefit.
No. It is you who decide to aquire a license vs. buying it. You can always tell the corporation to fuck off and chose the printed version/CD.
Which I often do. It's hilarious to look on Amazon for a book I want, and sometimes find the ebook selling for $11.99 while a used paper copy is $4.00 including shipping.
If selling copies were legal, it would make it impossible to sell copies of digital goods, as there's always be someone willing to sell for cheaper and the race to the bottom would make everything free.
Not if people actually sold the digital goods, meaning, they didn't keep a copy of their own, and they only sold it once. Then it's quite like any other used item sale. (It's not exactly alike, of course.)
Now if you're going to counter that people wouldn't do a legal resale as I specified above, I'll counter that by saying a law against resale won't stop those people either.