Doomed, as in it won't dominate the world like Microsoft software, or doomed as in you will always condemn it, no matter how good it is, because it isn't built in the fashion you would prefer (open source)?
"I think we're past the point at which developing a new OS in closed source is a viable option."
Please define "viable." My dictionary states: "capable of growing or developing." BeOS is doing both, just check out any of the BeOS dev sites, BeBits, etc. Many of those projects are open source, although a lot of high quality ones are not.
For someone that paints himself as open minded, it seems strange that you predicate your choices on whether or not a product is made in a certain fashion. To me, it's enough that a product works well and makes it easier for me to get my work done.
"the free Unixes have soaked up so much hacking talent that I don't think BeOS will ever be able to grow an independently viable developer base."
Apparantly 10,000 developers (and growing) is not viable? And how come the THOUSANDS of "talented hackers" you have working on Linux have not been able to match the ingenuity of 100 Be engineers? Perhaps quantity != quality?
"Sorry, BEfolks. If it's any comfort, I thought it was a really nice try..."
After reading your other statements, I think it's safe to say that what you think has no bearing on reality. You're mind is locked-tight on Linux.
What a shame. But at least I got a cool new.sig!
-WW
-- Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Basically automated? What friggin Linux are *you* installing? I've tried RedHat, debian, and slackware, and none of those are even close to being automated.
NOT EVEN CLOSE.
Besides, you're missing my point. If I -- someone with 15 years of experience with computers, and 4 years of programming experience -- am having a hard time with Linux, you can imagine the problems that your average user is having.
If you'd rather sit around and just crack jokes about how automated the process is, that's fine. But it won't make Linux any easier to install.
-WW
-- Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Basically automated? What friggin Linux are *you* installing? I've tried RedHat, debian, and slackware, and none of those are even close to being automated.
NOT EVEN CLOSE.
-WW
-- Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Re:Your alternate "geek-centered" reality
on
CNN Installs Linux
·
· Score: 1
"Try "man ls". If that fails, all the recent distributions come with KDE."
And none of them offer a very nice end-user GUI experience, from what I've seen at school...
-WW
-- Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Guess I have to turn off almost everything...
on
Matt Welsh on NPR
·
· Score: 0
... in order to avoid articles about Linux. -- Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
It's also not usable by anyone other than kernel hacking geeks...
So either you can attempt to bend people like me (15 years computer experience) to your evil ways, or you can improve the damn operating system so that someone without your superior level of expertise can run it.
Either way, I win.
-WW
P.S. My original post was meant to be humorous. I guess it wasn't "jackass proof."
-- Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Your alternate "geek-centered" reality
on
CNN Installs Linux
·
· Score: 1
Sorry for posting this twice... the first time was all fscked up by the default "HTML formatted" setting on this damn form (WHY??? WHY???? WHY???).
----
"Face it. You think windows is easy because you buy computers with it already installed."
Nah, I install Windows 9x/NT/2000 all the time on machines in various states (brand new, already running some other OS, dual boot, etc).
While I have had trouble with some Windows installs, I:
a) Can always get it running within a day. b) Have never had as many difficulties as when trying to install Linux.
I have plenty of experience with computers (15 years), DOS, Windows, BeOS, and even Irix. I'm a programmer and a CS student.
None of this changes the fact that I have started at least 10 different Linux installations on various hardware configurations, and have only gotten it to "work" ONE TIME. And that time was pure hell, trying to get X to work correctly, finding decent programs that do things I've grown accustomed to (you know, crazy things like browsing my file system).
Sometimes I think, hey, I've got 500MB free here, why not setup another partition and get Linux running on this thing (along with BeOS and Win2K)? I mean, I'm a CS student, and I do feel a certain amount of "geek peer pressure" to run Linux.
But then I think back to all the times I've had to wrestle with getting a good distribution, reading all the HOWTO and INSTALL manuals over and over, trying to decipher prompts and windows written by kernel hacking geeks that wouldn't know a GUI if it double-clicked them in the face, etc.
Linux installs are just plain TOO DIFFICULT. My personal guess is that it will take at least two years before any Linux distribution has a user- experience (from install, to GUI, to maintenance) that rivals Win2K/BeOS/MacOS.
May the force be with you.
-WW
-- Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Your alternate "geek-centered" reality
on
CNN Installs Linux
·
· Score: 1
"Face it. You think windows is easy because you buy computers with it already installed." Nah, I install Windows 9x/NT/2000 all the time on machines in various states (brand new, already running some other OS, dual boot, etc). While I have had trouble with some Windows installs, I: a) Can always get it running within a day. b) Have never had as many difficulties as when trying to install Linux. I have plenty of experience with computers (15 years), DOS, Windows, BeOS, and even Irix. I'm a programmer and a CS student. None of this changes the fact that I have started at least 10 different Linux installations on various hardware configurations, and have only gotten it to "work" ONE TIME. And that time was pure hell, trying to get X to work correctly, finding decent programs that do things I've grown accustomed to (you know, crazy things like browsing my file system). Sometimes I think, hey, I've got 500MB free here, why not setup another partition and get Linux running on this thing (along with BeOS and Win2K)? I mean, I'm a CS student, and I do feel a certain amount of "geek peer pressure" to run Linux. But then I think back to all the times I've had to wrestle with getting a good distribution, reading all the HOWTO and INSTALL manuals over and over, trying to decipher prompts and windows written by kernel hacking geeks that wouldn't know a GUI if it double-clicked them in the face, etc. Linux installs are just plain TOO DIFFICULT. My personal guess is that it will take at least two years before any Linux distribution has a user- experience (from install, to GUI, to maintenance) that rivals Win2K/BeOS/MacOS. May the force be with you. -WW -- Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Because the way eBay figures it, THEY are the top dog, and they have the "pull" to stand on their own merits. Letting the search engines provide the front-end to eBay means they lose out on chances to advertise to the eyeballs that would normally be there.
In a year, things may be different. But for now, ebay is king, and if they can make you browse their site directly, they'll do it.
-WW
There's two sides to every issue. One side, and... then the other side.
-- Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
How do you think those companies get the links to ebay items? That's right, they search ebay's database (using ebay's resources) to pull this information.
YOU may not care "where you are," but most companies care where you are... that's how the bills get paid.
-WW
-- Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
I've been using Beta 3 for about 2-3 months now, and the only time I reboot this thing is when I want to use BeOS.
I have seen what you're talking about, but I've also seen it on previous versions of NT and 9x. Usually it's because there is a zombie process already running for that application, and it won't start another copy of it. I would just kill the process and try again.
I was using Win98 a lot for work because it seems to be "lighter weight" than NT4 (plus it has USB support). But I just couldn't deal with its instability. 4-5 crashes a day or more. Win2000 is pretty bloated (ram hungry, too), but it is stable. Since I have to use some form of Windows for work, for now at least, I'll stick with 2K.
Eventually I'd like to get BeOS running full time. I'll need BeZilla and pcanywhere for BeOS first, though.:-)
Yet, it took him some thirty minutes to grasp the idea that "when I drag a file on another directory, the file is not moved, not copied, instead just a shortcut is created."
Uhhhh... what exactly was he copying? When I drag and drop a file in windows, it copies the file. Or I can right-click drag it, and decide what I want to do with it (copy, move, shortcut, etc).
"After some frustration, he realized it'd be quicker to do it through the prompt, and he never used windows eplorer again since."
It's ashame that he has no patience, but this does not further your argument that windows or GUI's are not intuitive. Or are you saying that he immediately picked up all the DOS commands in thirty minutes?
I'm not saying Windows is the most intuitive thing ever built (I like BeOS personally), but it damn sure makes more sense to newbies than anything running in Linux.
"It harldy ever manages to do what I expect to happen."
How about some examples?
I for one think that X is one of the kludgiest GUI's ever created. Fer chrissakes, X apps can't even decide what shortcuts should be used for copy, cut, and paste! I had an SGI Indy for awhile that was great, but I swear it was impossible to remember which apps used which shortcuts. (Luckily the middle mouse button could be used to copy in most circumstances.) KDE is an improvement, but they have a long way to go before reaching the niceness of Mac, BeOS, and yes, even Windows.
"[Intuitiveness] refers to making users comfortable with the interface without prior experience and habitual familiarity with it."
True. But this is going to depend a lot on the background of the user. Someone who comes from a DOS background might not find much intuitive about a GUI at first... it takes some getting used to. This experience shouldn't be applied as some sort of "proof" that a GUI is un-intuitive.
That may be true, but I imagine that there will be plenty more modules available for Visor due to the fact that it was made with that purpose in mind. Those add-ons you mention will likely be the first modules available for it... no doubt made by the same companies that produce the PP versions...
1. Marketing "crap" pays the bills. I didn't see too many people sending DejaNews money for their cool service.
2. Maybe they looked at the Lynx market-share, and decided it was worth losing 1% of their users (or less) in order to design the site to appeal to the millions of people new to the net. I believe the market for newbies is quite a bit larger than Lynx users, so that would seem to be a good bet.
Then again, I just use the Power Search, so I guess I'm missing something.
I realize that the Handspring Visor is not out yet, but how on Earth is the Palm Vx going to compete against it with a pricetag $200 more expensive? ($250 Visor Deluxe vs. $450 Palm Vx)
I just got interested in the palmtops, and I'm trying to decide which one to buy. Right now, it seems like a no brainer. Especially with the Visor's module slot and 8mb RAM. And it runs the same OS as the Palm! Compatability -- yeehaw!
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, that guy's a real a$$hole!
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
"I think BeOS is beautiful but doomed."
.sig!
Doomed, as in it won't dominate the world like
Microsoft software, or doomed as in you will
always condemn it, no matter how good it is,
because it isn't built in the fashion you would
prefer (open source)?
"I think we're past the point at which developing
a new OS in closed source is a viable option."
Please define "viable." My dictionary states: "capable of growing or developing." BeOS is doing
both, just check out any of the BeOS dev sites,
BeBits, etc. Many of those projects are open
source, although a lot of high quality ones are
not.
For someone that paints himself as open minded, it
seems strange that you predicate your choices on
whether or not a product is made in a certain
fashion. To me, it's enough that a product works
well and makes it easier for me to get my work
done.
"the free Unixes have soaked up so much hacking talent that I don't think BeOS will ever be able to grow an independently viable developer base."
Apparantly 10,000 developers (and growing) is not viable? And how come the THOUSANDS of "talented
hackers" you have working on Linux have not been
able to match the ingenuity of 100 Be engineers?
Perhaps quantity != quality?
"Sorry, BEfolks. If it's any comfort, I thought it was a really nice try..."
After reading your other statements, I think it's
safe to say that what you think has no bearing on
reality. You're mind is locked-tight on Linux.
What a shame. But at least I got a cool new
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Basically automated? What friggin Linux are
*you* installing? I've tried RedHat, debian,
and slackware, and none of those are even close
to being automated.
NOT EVEN CLOSE.
Besides, you're missing my point. If I -- someone
with 15 years of experience with computers, and
4 years of programming experience -- am having a
hard time with Linux, you can imagine the problems
that your average user is having.
If you'd rather sit around and just crack jokes
about how automated the process is, that's fine.
But it won't make Linux any easier to install.
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Basically automated? What friggin Linux are
*you* installing? I've tried RedHat, debian,
and slackware, and none of those are even close
to being automated.
NOT EVEN CLOSE.
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
"Try "man ls". If that fails, all the recent distributions come with KDE."
And none of them offer a very nice end-user GUI
experience, from what I've seen at school...
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
... in order to avoid articles about Linux.
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Overhyped? Ya think???
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
It's also not usable by anyone other than
kernel hacking geeks...
So either you can attempt to bend people like
me (15 years computer experience) to your evil
ways, or you can improve the damn operating
system so that someone without your superior
level of expertise can run it.
Either way, I win.
-WW
P.S. My original post was meant to be humorous.
I guess it wasn't "jackass proof."
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Sorry for posting this twice... the first time
was all fscked up by the default "HTML formatted"
setting on this damn form (WHY??? WHY???? WHY???).
----
"Face it. You think windows is easy because you buy computers with it already installed."
Nah, I install Windows 9x/NT/2000 all the time on
machines in various states (brand new, already
running some other OS, dual boot, etc).
While I have had trouble with some Windows
installs, I:
a) Can always get it running within a day.
b) Have never had as many difficulties as when
trying to install Linux.
I have plenty of experience with computers (15
years), DOS, Windows, BeOS, and even Irix. I'm
a programmer and a CS student.
None of this changes the fact that I have started
at least 10 different Linux installations on
various hardware configurations, and have only
gotten it to "work" ONE TIME. And that time was
pure hell, trying to get X to work correctly,
finding decent programs that do things I've grown
accustomed to (you know, crazy things like
browsing my file system).
Sometimes I think, hey, I've got 500MB free here,
why not setup another partition and get Linux
running on this thing (along with BeOS and Win2K)?
I mean, I'm a CS student, and I do feel a certain
amount of "geek peer pressure" to run Linux.
But then I think back to all the times I've had to
wrestle with getting a good distribution, reading
all the HOWTO and INSTALL manuals over and over,
trying to decipher prompts and windows written by
kernel hacking geeks that wouldn't know a GUI if
it double-clicked them in the face, etc.
Linux installs are just plain TOO DIFFICULT. My
personal guess is that it will take at least two
years before any Linux distribution has a user-
experience (from install, to GUI, to maintenance)
that rivals Win2K/BeOS/MacOS.
May the force be with you.
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
"Face it. You think windows is easy because you buy computers with it already installed." Nah, I install Windows 9x/NT/2000 all the time on machines in various states (brand new, already running some other OS, dual boot, etc). While I have had trouble with some Windows installs, I: a) Can always get it running within a day. b) Have never had as many difficulties as when trying to install Linux. I have plenty of experience with computers (15 years), DOS, Windows, BeOS, and even Irix. I'm a programmer and a CS student. None of this changes the fact that I have started at least 10 different Linux installations on various hardware configurations, and have only gotten it to "work" ONE TIME. And that time was pure hell, trying to get X to work correctly, finding decent programs that do things I've grown accustomed to (you know, crazy things like browsing my file system). Sometimes I think, hey, I've got 500MB free here, why not setup another partition and get Linux running on this thing (along with BeOS and Win2K)? I mean, I'm a CS student, and I do feel a certain amount of "geek peer pressure" to run Linux. But then I think back to all the times I've had to wrestle with getting a good distribution, reading all the HOWTO and INSTALL manuals over and over, trying to decipher prompts and windows written by kernel hacking geeks that wouldn't know a GUI if it double-clicked them in the face, etc. Linux installs are just plain TOO DIFFICULT. My personal guess is that it will take at least two years before any Linux distribution has a user- experience (from install, to GUI, to maintenance) that rivals Win2K/BeOS/MacOS. May the force be with you. -WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Because the way eBay figures it, THEY are the
top dog, and they have the "pull" to stand on
their own merits. Letting the search engines
provide the front-end to eBay means they lose
out on chances to advertise to the eyeballs that
would normally be there.
In a year, things may be different. But for now,
ebay is king, and if they can make you browse
their site directly, they'll do it.
-WW
There's two sides to every issue. One side, and...
then the other side.
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
That's a little naive.
How do you think those companies get the links to
ebay items? That's right, they search ebay's database (using ebay's resources) to pull this
information.
YOU may not care "where you are," but most
companies care where you are... that's how the
bills get paid.
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
How many minor disruptions does it take to become
a major disruption?
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
You lose...
I just had to recompile my kernel for the 100th time, and threw my box out the window in a
furious rage.
Sure as shit, that f*cking thing went down!
Please send payment to....
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
You lose...
I just had to recompile my kernel for the 100th time, and threw my box out the window.
Sure as shit, that f*cking thing went down!
Please send payment to....
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
"Anyone else see this symptom?"
:-)
Not with any frequency or pattern.
I've been using Beta 3 for about 2-3 months
now, and the only time I reboot this thing is
when I want to use BeOS.
I have seen what you're talking about, but I've
also seen it on previous versions of NT and 9x.
Usually it's because there is a zombie process
already running for that application, and it won't
start another copy of it. I would just kill the
process and try again.
I was using Win98 a lot for work because it seems
to be "lighter weight" than NT4 (plus it has USB
support). But I just couldn't deal with its
instability. 4-5 crashes a day or more. Win2000 is
pretty bloated (ram hungry, too), but it is
stable. Since I have to use some form of Windows
for work, for now at least, I'll stick with 2K.
Eventually I'd like to get BeOS running full time.
I'll need BeZilla and pcanywhere for BeOS first,
though.
-WW
--
Yet, it took him some thirty minutes to grasp the idea that "when I drag a file on another directory, the file is not moved, not copied, instead just a shortcut is created."
Uhhhh... what exactly was he copying? When I
drag and drop a file in windows, it copies the
file. Or I can right-click drag it, and decide
what I want to do with it (copy, move, shortcut,
etc).
"After some frustration, he realized it'd be quicker to do it through the prompt, and he never used windows eplorer again since."
It's ashame that he has no patience, but this does
not further your argument that windows or GUI's are not intuitive. Or are you saying that he
immediately picked up all the DOS commands in
thirty minutes?
I'm not saying Windows is the most intuitive thing
ever built (I like BeOS personally), but it damn
sure makes more sense to newbies than anything
running in Linux.
"It harldy ever manages to do what I expect to
happen."
How about some examples?
I for one think that X is one of the kludgiest
GUI's ever created. Fer chrissakes, X apps can't
even decide what shortcuts should be used for
copy, cut, and paste! I had an SGI Indy for awhile
that was great, but I swear it was impossible to
remember which apps used which shortcuts. (Luckily
the middle mouse button could be used to copy in
most circumstances.) KDE is an improvement, but
they have a long way to go before reaching the
niceness of Mac, BeOS, and yes, even Windows.
"[Intuitiveness] refers to making users
comfortable with the interface without prior
experience and habitual familiarity with it."
True. But this is going to depend a lot on the
background of the user. Someone who comes from a
DOS background might not find much intuitive about
a GUI at first... it takes some getting used to.
This experience shouldn't be applied as some sort
of "proof" that a GUI is un-intuitive.
-WW
-WW
--
Joan of Arc would have jumped in the fire
voluntarily if she'd had to use Linux all day...
--
No, a mis-categorization is to place an article
that is only of interest to Linux users in a
category that is only of interest to SGI people.
Either that, or they should offer a way to filter
out articles containing 'Linux.'
-WW
--
This is a Linux article, not SGI.
-WW
--
That may be true, but I imagine that there will
be plenty more modules available for Visor
due to the fact that it was made with that purpose
in mind. Those add-ons you mention will likely be
the first modules available for it... no doubt
made by the same companies that produce the PP
versions...
-WW
--
Smaller yes, prettier no... I like the Visor
colors! Yeehaw iMac-itis I guess...
-WW
--
Oh, gee, I see your point.
Linux, an OS oriented towards unix geeks has a
much bigger market than Java, a language oriented
towards unix geeks, windows geeks, mac geeks, etc.
Yeah, you're right, WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?
Boy, what a stupid conversation.
-WW
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
1. Marketing "crap" pays the bills. I didn't see
too many people sending DejaNews money for their
cool service.
2. Maybe they looked at the Lynx market-share,
and decided it was worth losing 1% of their
users (or less) in order to design the site to
appeal to the millions of people new to the net.
I believe the market for newbies is quite a bit
larger than Lynx users, so that would seem to be
a good bet.
Then again, I just use the Power Search, so I
guess I'm missing something.
-WW
--
I realize that the Handspring Visor is not out
yet, but how on Earth is the Palm Vx going to
compete against it with a pricetag $200 more
expensive? ($250 Visor Deluxe vs. $450 Palm Vx)
I just got interested in the palmtops, and I'm
trying to decide which one to buy. Right now, it
seems like a no brainer. Especially with the
Visor's module slot and 8mb RAM. And it runs the
same OS as the Palm! Compatability -- yeehaw!
Are there any negatives?
-WW
--