Your Dell doesn't run MacOS X. What a beautiful interface.
Yes, it is.
Smokes the hell out of Windows and I'm sorry, but Linux looks absolutely clunky compared to it.
Sure, why not.
That's from a 6 year Linux advocate getting to play with a Powermac G3 running OS X for 1 day. I'll still keep my Linux box around to play with but for a desktop I'm absolutely obsessed with saving money for a Mac now.
Well, that's cool, but I hope you're doing it for technical merits of commercial-software availability, and not just for a pretty interface. If you need a pretty interface . . . well, may I be the first to suggest that maybe you don't even need a computer?
Seriously, once in a while I feel like bashing people like Rasterman and Arlo Thomas over the head for getting people obsessed with pretty interfaces--right now, I'm using KDE 2.2.2 with the Qt Motif toolkit look and the KDE1 window decoration--and I find my productivity level to be far higher than it was when I was using silly windowmanager look-and-feel interfaces, as well as ridiculous toolkit themes/styles.
I feel pretty much the same about the OS X interface--and I've been using it a while. I'm sorely tempted to install the Sosumi theme (very Platinum-like) when I get back to work on Wednesday.
It doesn't help Linux, though, that Macromedia Flash, and numerous other plugins, run like 4 times as slow in Linux as they do in Windows, and that drivers have to be written by hackers in their bedrooms
That was true three years ago, but most folks (at least I'd hope so:-) using Flash plugins under Linux are using the actual Macromedia Flash plugin.
If you think it's too slow, complain to Macromedia.
Even on Debian, it was pretty much point-and-click for me...fire up a web browser, point it at http://localhost:631, click on "Manage Printers", click "Add Printer," enter a superuser name and password, and follow the steps from then on.
It really is that simple, unless you've got a distro that has a weird installation of CUPS.
Heck, on Mandrake boxes, one can often have the printer autodetected, and the installer can often (in my experience) choose the correct driver.
Except that MSNBC is the most openly critical newssite, when it comes to MS. I suppose they think it gives them journalistic credibility to be so openly critical of their parent company.;-)
apparently the package maintainer is futzing around with the packages in a way that will violate Apache's licensing scheme, so rather than giving the package maintainer a good kick in the ass (which sounds like the right thing to do;-) the package is being moved to Non-Free.
Hrm. Package maintainer mucks around; software gets stigma of being Non-Free. Anyone else a little concerned about that?
Linux isn't for desktop, I dislkike macos, that leaves windows.
Linux isn't for the desktop? Damn. I've been such an idiot for the last 5 years. This easy-to-use KDE2 desktop I'm using right now (I just backed up/var/cache/apt/archives by opening the dir in Konqueror, right-clicking, and choosing "create ISO image", which fired up KreateCD, and one click on "Burn CD!" burnt a CD. Wasn't that hard?), despite the fact that it's so damned easy to use, isn't for the desktop.
Nevermind that I installed an IDE CD-RW drive last night, and it took me a fraction of the time to set up under Linux than it did under Windows The software bundled with the drive managed to hose several "trivial" files like SYSTEM.INI. And then, after reinstalling Windows (yep) I had to go through 12 different sequences of steps to get my video card's drivers working again (a Voodoo3 2K, which is very well supported...at least under Linux.) Windows is certainly more ready for the desktop, yessir.
Mozilla is a fully functional legitimate program that MS has not suppressed in any way shape or form. Any windows user can download Mozilla and make the switch.
And won't they be surprised when they go to look for the latest "l337" animation, only to find that the thing they need to view it is only available as an ActiveX extension, since IE no longer supporte NS plugins.
The problem as I see it (as a largely uninformed loudmouth) is that yeah, RMS's undying enthusiasm is great, but largely unrealistic.
Look, that voice of optimism and enthusiasm, as far as I know, has never had to live or work very far from the world of academia (again, I could be wrong, in which case I apologize.) One thing that's both wonderful and grating about academic-types is that many will put an idealistic crusade above all, rather than stepping back and looking at the practicality of a situation.
Or, to put it more succinctly, those otherwise highly intelligent people have never had to grow up.
The real truth to the situation: if Lindows is more than smoke-and-mirrors, and their CEO can get beyond his annoying habit of trampling on others' intellectual property rights, you'll have a choice that, if it works, allows one to use both free software and software that's written for a platform that's on more than 90% of desktop machines.
I, for one, am interested merely because I'm tired of dual-booting, and have no intentions of buying XP unless I have an opportunity to buy the Corporate Edition. I live in a country where the judicial system treats me as an innocent until proven guilty; I want software that does the same.;-D
Idealism is one thing; putting food on the table is quite another. If anyone wants to help instruct me on hacking Pantone support into Sketch, and then help keep Pantone's lawyers off my back, I'd be more than happy to; until then, if this platform would help make running those W32 apps such as Illustrator as painless on the Linux platform as it is on the Windows platform (or, even better, less painful), I'm all ears.
If you're downloading gcc 3.0 the day it comes out because you want the new features fast, great! But, don't be shocked when your code fails to work correctly because you have a hardware combination that was not well tested.
And further, don't run off to kuro5hin or ZDNet writing a bitchy, whiny, ranty editorial about OSS not being "production-ready." It's asinine, wrong-headed (ever heard of filling out a friendly bug report?), and besides, takes away from your credibility when you use language constructs invented by Microsoft's marketing department.;-)
But, to expect every project to come out the gate with good Q/A and support is just silly.
Right, and one thing that people forget (or the newcomers haven't learned yet) is that OSS projects rely on their userbase for QA and support as well.
I'm personally just glad to see that we're nearing the end of the year-long "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" trollwars.;-)
Going back to FreeBSD...on my home machine, a machine that I used to run Linux for weeks (even months) on end on, I put FreeBSD stable on the machine...and had the machine freeze 3-4 times a day. That was this year. I put Slack on the box and haven't looked back since.
I've never had netscape crash a Linux box, but I've had Netscape crash on several occasions, occasionally causing X to hang. If you've got access to a terminal (you do have a way of getting into the machine "remotely", right?) there's no problems.
If this loser was for real, I'd have to agree...I have to think that this is some guy who's either a *BSD nut or sitting in an office in Redmond somewhere.
Either way, let that be a lesson to everyone: don't use new releases for production machines! That doesn't go for just Linux, either.
In my case I still use Windows because I play a lot of games and use a lot of high-end graphics software like Quark, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (sorry, but Killustrator and GIMP just cannot compare).
Amen to that.
I'm a raving Linux advocate, but I can't advocate it to the people I work with simply because the software I use professionally (what you've named here) simply isn't available.
Then again, none of the people I know doing graphic design/layout have PCs, AFAIK, so we could all be using maconlinux anyway (which seems to defeat the purpose of running Linux, but hey, if MacOS is more stable under Linux, as some claim...)
Unfortunately, I can't test the theory, as I have an AMD-based PC at home, and don't wish to support Apple any more than I have to.:-/
Yeah, I know it's a troll, but look at me, silly me, responding anyway.
Doesn't this port go against the ethics and goal of the project? Isn't it porting software to a less stable operating system? Contributing to a monopoly?
*sigh* Maybe, but quite frankly, sometimes I long for my KDE 2.x desktop.:-) I've looked into getting OS X.1 running on my Apple at work mainly to start installing "ports" of popular *n?x apps. I use KDE at home, and I've come to expect everything else in the world to work like KDE.:-)
Now, I'm not saying that KDE couldn't use some improvements (like, for instance, if they were to copy pre-OSX Finder a little more closely;-) but, doggone it, the major desktop(s) have their problems too. Not saying that KDE is less guilty by association; just saying that, given the fact that KDE is a free effort, that one would expect the commercial desktop OSes to be miles ahead of KDE and GNOME, usability-wise. But FWIW that's not the case.:-)
Back to my original point: I personally don't see a problem with this, mainly because it's a.) a neat little toy and b.) "proof" that apps written on POSIX systems are portable, unlike the stuff we get from Redmond.:-)
Maybe due to all the recent flaws in the kernel
There's more than just Windows and Linux out there, bucko. You're talking about Linux, right? Well...at least the Linux crowd doesn't attempt to hide or stifle major bugs in their OS.:-)
and the mass migration from Unix to Windows 2000/XP
Huh?
the developers are realizing that windows is a better operating system.
A-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
I'm not a Windows developer, but I know quite a few both In Real Life and online, and I've got to say that the phrase "happy Windows programmer" is an oxymoron.
More like, pointy-haired management types want something they can see in a box, and MS hucksters came along putting the hard-sell on their latest snake-oil release. And the developers were left with the task of developing on the turkey.
All someone has to do is anonymously post the GPL'd source someplace on the net, and the company's valuable, secret, internal (oooh, aaaah) intellectual property and probably lots about their business practices are revealed to anyone interested with no recourse.
Right.
And not using the GPL will prevent some evil employee from posting the source anonymously.
I don't care how low your UID is; you're still naive.
I get tired of listening to the whiny bastards once they discover kuro5hin.org (which, unfortunately, is down once again.) Blah blah blah Taco's an idiot blah blah blah poor editorial decisions blah blah blah stupid comments blah blah blah Michael is stupid blah blah blah MS-bashing blah blah blah.
Quite frankly, I find nothing wrong with Slashdot. What I think is wrong with Slashdot is a userbase that not only doesn't understand how Slashdot works, but can't be bothered to understand it before they run around screaming about how "bad" Slashdot is. Pity, really.
Can't argue that Galeon isn't better than plain ol' Mozilla from a usability standpoint...but...
5. Gtk is prettier than Qt...no offense KDE folks, it just is, IMVHO.
Really, I mean no offense, but...that's a pretty stupid reason for preferring GTK apps to QT apps. Really.
6. Its a cool enough project that A) they jumped from 0.12.8 to 1.0 and B)the KDE-propagandist website, "Slashdot," actually saw need to mention it:)
So undeniably false...if anything,/. has been such a GNOME fanboy site that they seem to jism as soon as a minor release of some GNOME app comes out. OOh, ooh, look, a GNOME knock-off of some KDE applet just came out! FP, baby!
They've been less down on KDE now that QT is dual-licensed, though, and I realize that CmdrTaco talks good about Konq, which means that "smart" people are supposed to hate Konqueror now.
Nice use of a Red Dwarf quote (I love the macho Rimmer;-) but did you post that from, say, Win2K using IE? If so, WTF is up with the copyright symbols? Did MS finally change from CR/LF to something else? Is that Unicode for "Enter"? What is going on, Ye Gods Above?
epkg has been around a while; it works by making symlinks in/usr/local, while the actual software is installed in its own subdirs. It's a compromise between keeping everything in their own subdirs and managing $PATH, and it works quite well.:-)
Please read this article with the same grain of salt you would read a Linux advocacy article from the CEO of RedHat.
Excellent point. In fact, I have to say I agree with both of you. I really tried to give Carnage4Life a chance on kuro5hin, but he'd always come back and flame me, even when I agreed with him. He's so damned desperate to flame anyone who has Open Source ideals, mainly because he feels ostracised for having worked at Microsoft.
But you're right. Bob Young or (in years past...not true now) Larry Augustin aren't any more credible sources than Bill Gates. All of 'em like to spout business rhetoric. And hey, I live in America, where the "world" revolves around business.
The fact that the party in question here is Microsoft makes me question the motiviation no more than any other party.
(OT: dangit, I keep trying to middle-click-paste right now, and I'm running Win98 'cause I'm too lazy to install the silly CrossOver plugin to view a QuickTime movie trailer. Bah.)
Right. And I've got to think that there's developers working for MS scratching their heads about all the hate foisted upon C# just for being MS. Yeah, it's going to be used as a marketing tool rather than genuinely as an innovative tech tool. But how much was Linux used as a marketing gimmick in the last 3 years? And for all you people worried about C# taking over the world, look at the beating the Linux world has taken, mainly because companies used Linux as a marketing gimmick?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it is.
Smokes the hell out of Windows and I'm sorry, but Linux looks absolutely clunky compared to it.
Sure, why not.
That's from a 6 year Linux advocate getting to play with a Powermac G3 running OS X for 1 day. I'll still keep my Linux box around to play with but for a desktop I'm absolutely obsessed with saving money for a Mac now.
Well, that's cool, but I hope you're doing it for technical merits of commercial-software availability, and not just for a pretty interface. If you need a pretty interface . . . well, may I be the first to suggest that maybe you don't even need a computer?
Seriously, once in a while I feel like bashing people like Rasterman and Arlo Thomas over the head for getting people obsessed with pretty interfaces--right now, I'm using KDE 2.2.2 with the Qt Motif toolkit look and the KDE1 window decoration--and I find my productivity level to be far higher than it was when I was using silly windowmanager look-and-feel interfaces, as well as ridiculous toolkit themes/styles.
I feel pretty much the same about the OS X interface--and I've been using it a while. I'm sorely tempted to install the Sosumi theme (very Platinum-like) when I get back to work on Wednesday.
That was true three years ago, but most folks (at least I'd hope so :-) using Flash plugins under Linux are using the actual Macromedia Flash plugin.
If you think it's too slow, complain to Macromedia.
Even on Debian, it was pretty much point-and-click for me...fire up a web browser, point it at http://localhost:631, click on "Manage Printers", click "Add Printer," enter a superuser name and password, and follow the steps from then on.
It really is that simple, unless you've got a distro that has a weird installation of CUPS.
Heck, on Mandrake boxes, one can often have the printer autodetected, and the installer can often (in my experience) choose the correct driver.
Except that MSNBC is the most openly critical newssite, when it comes to MS. I suppose they think it gives them journalistic credibility to be so openly critical of their parent company. ;-)
I wouldn't expect that level of imagination from people who name themselves after Star Wars characters. ;-D
Guess not.
And kids, what does that tell us about MS's business prospects when their employees have nothing better to do than troll Slashdot?
Hrm. Package maintainer mucks around; software gets stigma of being Non-Free. Anyone else a little concerned about that?
Linux isn't for the desktop? Damn. I've been such an idiot for the last 5 years. This easy-to-use KDE2 desktop I'm using right now (I just backed up /var/cache/apt/archives by opening the dir in Konqueror, right-clicking, and choosing "create ISO image", which fired up KreateCD, and one click on "Burn CD!" burnt a CD. Wasn't that hard?), despite the fact that it's so damned easy to use, isn't for the desktop.
Nevermind that I installed an IDE CD-RW drive last night, and it took me a fraction of the time to set up under Linux than it did under Windows The software bundled with the drive managed to hose several "trivial" files like SYSTEM.INI. And then, after reinstalling Windows (yep) I had to go through 12 different sequences of steps to get my video card's drivers working again (a Voodoo3 2K, which is very well supported...at least under Linux.) Windows is certainly more ready for the desktop, yessir.
Infallible logic, that.
</SARCASM>
Mozilla is a fully functional legitimate program that MS has not suppressed in any way shape or form. Any windows user can download Mozilla and make the switch.
And won't they be surprised when they go to look for the latest "l337" animation, only to find that the thing they need to view it is only available as an ActiveX extension, since IE no longer supporte NS plugins.
No, no suppression of competition at all.
Look, that voice of optimism and enthusiasm, as far as I know, has never had to live or work very far from the world of academia (again, I could be wrong, in which case I apologize.) One thing that's both wonderful and grating about academic-types is that many will put an idealistic crusade above all, rather than stepping back and looking at the practicality of a situation.
Or, to put it more succinctly, those otherwise highly intelligent people have never had to grow up.
The real truth to the situation: if Lindows is more than smoke-and-mirrors, and their CEO can get beyond his annoying habit of trampling on others' intellectual property rights, you'll have a choice that, if it works, allows one to use both free software and software that's written for a platform that's on more than 90% of desktop machines.
I, for one, am interested merely because I'm tired of dual-booting, and have no intentions of buying XP unless I have an opportunity to buy the Corporate Edition. I live in a country where the judicial system treats me as an innocent until proven guilty; I want software that does the same.
Idealism is one thing; putting food on the table is quite another. If anyone wants to help instruct me on hacking Pantone support into Sketch, and then help keep Pantone's lawyers off my back, I'd be more than happy to; until then, if this platform would help make running those W32 apps such as Illustrator as painless on the Linux platform as it is on the Windows platform (or, even better, less painful), I'm all ears.
The trolls and other people who don't care, the people who're just here to ruin the experience for everyone, use IE on Windows.
Simple when you think about it, really. And it makes sense.
Oh, I know; I have no proof. But hell, it'd be funny, wouldn't it?
And further, don't run off to kuro5hin or ZDNet writing a bitchy, whiny, ranty editorial about OSS not being "production-ready." It's asinine, wrong-headed (ever heard of filling out a friendly bug report?), and besides, takes away from your credibility when you use language constructs invented by Microsoft's marketing department. ;-)
But, to expect every project to come out the gate with good Q/A and support is just silly.
Right, and one thing that people forget (or the newcomers haven't learned yet) is that OSS projects rely on their userbase for QA and support as well.
I'm personally just glad to see that we're nearing the end of the year-long "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" trollwars. ;-)
Thanks, ajs; you made my day. :-)
Going back to FreeBSD...on my home machine, a machine that I used to run Linux for weeks (even months) on end on, I put FreeBSD stable on the machine...and had the machine freeze 3-4 times a day. That was this year. I put Slack on the box and haven't looked back since.
I've never had netscape crash a Linux box, but I've had Netscape crash on several occasions, occasionally causing X to hang. If you've got access to a terminal (you do have a way of getting into the machine "remotely", right?) there's no problems.
Do you still have a job? You don't deserve to.
If this loser was for real, I'd have to agree...I have to think that this is some guy who's either a *BSD nut or sitting in an office in Redmond somewhere.
Either way, let that be a lesson to everyone: don't use new releases for production machines! That doesn't go for just Linux, either.
Amen to that.
I'm a raving Linux advocate, but I can't advocate it to the people I work with simply because the software I use professionally (what you've named here) simply isn't available.
Then again, none of the people I know doing graphic design/layout have PCs, AFAIK, so we could all be using maconlinux anyway (which seems to defeat the purpose of running Linux, but hey, if MacOS is more stable under Linux, as some claim...)
Unfortunately, I can't test the theory, as I have an AMD-based PC at home, and don't wish to support Apple any more than I have to.
which ought to tell everyone something...
Yeah, I know it's a troll, but look at me, silly me, responding anyway.
Doesn't this port go against the ethics and goal of the project? Isn't it porting software to a less stable operating system? Contributing to a monopoly?
*sigh* Maybe, but quite frankly, sometimes I long for my KDE 2.x desktop.
Now, I'm not saying that KDE couldn't use some improvements (like, for instance, if they were to copy pre-OSX Finder a little more closely
Back to my original point: I personally don't see a problem with this, mainly because it's a.) a neat little toy and b.) "proof" that apps written on POSIX systems are portable, unlike the stuff we get from Redmond.
Maybe due to all the recent flaws in the kernel
There's more than just Windows and Linux out there, bucko. You're talking about Linux, right? Well...at least the Linux crowd doesn't attempt to hide or stifle major bugs in their OS.
and the mass migration from Unix to Windows 2000/XP
Huh?
the developers are realizing that windows is a better operating system.
A-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
I'm not a Windows developer, but I know quite a few both In Real Life and online, and I've got to say that the phrase "happy Windows programmer" is an oxymoron.
More like, pointy-haired management types want something they can see in a box, and MS hucksters came along putting the hard-sell on their latest snake-oil release. And the developers were left with the task of developing on the turkey.
Have a nice night, troll. It's been fun.
Right.
And not using the GPL will prevent some evil employee from posting the source anonymously.
I don't care how low your UID is; you're still naive.
Quite frankly, I find nothing wrong with Slashdot. What I think is wrong with Slashdot is a userbase that not only doesn't understand how Slashdot works, but can't be bothered to understand it before they run around screaming about how "bad" Slashdot is. Pity, really.
5. Gtk is prettier than Qt...no offense KDE folks, it just is, IMVHO.
Really, I mean no offense, but...that's a pretty stupid reason for preferring GTK apps to QT apps. Really.
6. Its a cool enough project that A) they jumped from 0.12.8 to 1.0 and B)the KDE-propagandist website, "Slashdot," actually saw need to mention it
So undeniably false...if anything,
They've been less down on KDE now that QT is dual-licensed, though, and I realize that CmdrTaco talks good about Konq, which means that "smart" people are supposed to hate Konqueror now.
Nice use of a Red Dwarf quote (I love the macho Rimmer ;-) but did you post that from, say, Win2K using IE? If so, WTF is up with the copyright symbols? Did MS finally change from CR/LF to something else? Is that Unicode for "Enter"? What is going on, Ye Gods Above?
use epkg.
/usr/local, while the actual software is installed in its own subdirs. It's a compromise between keeping everything in their own subdirs and managing $PATH, and it works quite well. :-)
epkg has been around a while; it works by making symlinks in
Excellent point. In fact, I have to say I agree with both of you. I really tried to give Carnage4Life a chance on kuro5hin, but he'd always come back and flame me, even when I agreed with him. He's so damned desperate to flame anyone who has Open Source ideals, mainly because he feels ostracised for having worked at Microsoft.
But you're right. Bob Young or (in years past...not true now) Larry Augustin aren't any more credible sources than Bill Gates. All of 'em like to spout business rhetoric. And hey, I live in America, where the "world" revolves around business.
The fact that the party in question here is Microsoft makes me question the motiviation no more than any other party.
(OT: dangit, I keep trying to middle-click-paste right now, and I'm running Win98 'cause I'm too lazy to install the silly CrossOver plugin to view a QuickTime movie trailer. Bah.)
Right. And I've got to think that there's developers working for MS scratching their heads about all the hate foisted upon C# just for being MS. Yeah, it's going to be used as a marketing tool rather than genuinely as an innovative tech tool. But how much was Linux used as a marketing gimmick in the last 3 years? And for all you people worried about C# taking over the world, look at the beating the Linux world has taken, mainly because companies used Linux as a marketing gimmick?
People, relax.