...you just have to force what's good on em. Sick of the viri, I hooked up a X terminal for my mom, she now works remotely on a Debian box, and couldn't care less what she's using (OOo works fine, besides her learning to save files as Word documents when she sends them to others. She likes firebirds google entrybar, although she didn't even know about google before the switch. Can you imagine?)
The less your users know about Windows, the easier the switch will be.
I'd put up a dual boot for my aunt some time ago, she's coping fine too and asked if I could remove Windows as she wasn't using it anymore. Naturally, you shouldn't force the switch if you can't help them out in the beginning, but in that case just let them try it out and let them make up their own mind.
How would Linux have major problems? I wouldn't mind a more secure and stable Windows, less viri is a good thing(tm), less clutter in my mail is something I wouldn't mind.
I don't see how a better Windows would be negative for Linux in general, it's not like all those Linux fanboys would run back. Use one, use the other or use both, and stop acting like it's a matter of life or death. They're tools, not religions.
Yeah, I have the karma to spare, mod me down. I'm just sick of everyone acting like Win-vs-Lin is important. Free software versus open source, now that is an issue!:)
Oh, and in my experience it's just a matter of education and documentation how well new users handle an OS. I personally find WinXP quite complicated, but that's because I havn't used it before.
Most of the time buying ram for old(er) computers is hard enough. 2GB of RAM might be cheap, but when you add up a new mobo, CPU, well, why not a new harddisk while we're at it?
Point is, there are plenty of old computers out there, and if we just watch the feature creep they can work perfectly as is. XFCE4 is new FOS software, snappy, isn't a memory hog and Just Works(tm). Even on my old 133 Mhz PC from 1996.
A desktop environment, imho, should just let users get stuff done, they don't have to show off their desktops with some latest craze. Leave the fluff to the games and non-free software, code for the lowest denominator and you don't leave people out.
Oh yeah, with proprietary software, companies/non-profits often don't even have a choice if they want to upgrade or not. Having a goodworking alternative for older PCs is a livesaver.
It's not the answer that matters, what does is the road you follow to get yourself the answer. Or something like that atleast.
Point is that nobody knows all the answers to everything, and new users shouldn't expect more knowledgable users to know everything. That includes fstab options. The difference between so-called 'gurus' and average joe is that the former rather finds his own answers first and the latter uses someone elses.
I should now throw the give-a-man-a-fish metaphore in here, but you're guru enough to google for it
'RTFM-ing' is also the only way to save your cool when you don't know the answer:)
Seriously, I'm not kidding. But more power to him though, if he wants to state his ideas let him. Some of his comments are interesting, others are just plain wrong, but even so I find it an interesting read.
When a few months ago we found out Sun had distributed tons of JDS evaluation cd's which use Morphix in combination with SuSE, our small community was quite stunned: nowhere did they mention us, or contact us about using our project on such a large scale. We hadn't anticipated it at all.
After a few days in which we were quite alarmed, Sun's technical director sent me an email to apologize and said he would fix the matter. Within no time, we got reports of being mentioned on the back of the cd covers and their website, and they sent us an evaluation cd. Our project was even mentioned in an article about JDS in the Guardian. There hasn't been much contact since, but it's good to see how quick they react.
Frankly, I didn't even think they gave a damn, but it seems that despite their size they are trying to do The Right Thing(tm). It's a pity ESR had to open his mouth like he did. They are willing to listen, but at least say something intelligent...
Neither, there are large companies supporting KDE as well. Foss is also about being able to choose: Don't like Linux, try a BSD. Don't like Gnome, try KDE.
Lack of choice, lack of options tend to lead to a lack of innovation and improvement (XFree86? Industry in Sovjet Russia?), whereas competition tends to lead to (great) improvements (US/Sovjet space race? Browser war?), so I sincerly hope no single desktop will ever rule.
SkyOS isn't an open source project and there are rumours that it contains GPL'ed code. The day SkyOS's code would be included into Linux is the same day SCO doesn't make a brainfuck.
Heck, I'd rather have Minix on my machine, at least it has a BSD-like license now. Choice is great, but don't make it seem like SkyOS is actually an improvement. It isn't, it's just some guys pet project that he doesn't want to share. Case closed.
I'm working on it, but it isn't top priority. For auto-installing any livecd, you also need to have a tool that automatically partitions your harddisk.
I'm currently pretty busy on a GTK2 partitioner called PartitionMorpher, and it's nearing completion for manual partitioning. the debian-installer guys have been working a lot recently on autopartkit (from SkoleLinux), and it looks like it would be a useful addition to our installer too.
Bottom line: You'll see it sooner rather than later. But I've said that a lot in the past...
Finding it odd that I hadn't heard about this MUTE (M.U.T.E. whatever) thingy earlier and that this project was so active on sf.net, I took a quick look at their statistics. Seems strange huh? Well, this article explains it all.
1 Hype your project, get it slashdotted!
2 Brag about your own project's activity, get it slashdotted again yourself!
3 ???
4 PROFIT!!!
Nice way to keep in the publicity though, could use his PR manager. Self-organizing systems are fun though...
Not yet, we've been working on this, however having good scripts to autobuild knoppix-based modules and livecds has a higher priority (the fancy UI's will come afterwards, there already is a prototype though). There's quite a large community and a large number of projects working on livecds, we're trying to make our lives as easy as possible.
Indeed, nearly all slashdot comments do echo the typical ideas most readers agree with. This is where dicussions with like-minded people will get you: nowhere. You become reinforced in the validation of your ideas, thus you get the typical zealotry most often seen here.
However, there are pearls to be found, by people willing to reflect upon themselves and the status quo in the community. True, being the Devil's advocate might waste your karma, but more often than not these post are modded up (your 5+ insightful, anyone?) which is the whole idea of the moderation scheme: Give people the chance to voice their different opinions, if well-argumented (controversial or not) they'll be read by thousands.
In every community, you'll have generally accepted ideas and thoughts as voiced in the article. However, I really don't agree with the not-voicing of controversial ideas. Only with these ideas, arguments and good discussions can you overcome the status quo and break out of the ivory towers we lock ourselves unknowingly into.
That's Morphix damnit, next thing they'll be calling it Muppix and expecting green frogs jumping around...
Anyway, main reason is that cloop needs to be ported to 2.6 and everyone's too lazy to do it. Klaus is busy as hell, and everyone else is waiting for Klaus:-)
Well, that _was_ the whole idea of the project now:)
Have you joined our mailinglist/forums? It's great that all these derivatives are getting this much press [insert proud father-of-morphix photo], it would be even better to keep in touch and exchange bugreports & featurerequests. If you have, just ignore me, doing my best to get as much feedback as possible on the different modules...
Being the first (afaik), some people (no, hordes of people) have told me to do this, they believe such a patent would make me rich. I counter it with: If it wasn't free, nobody would use it. In only 11 months, there have been many people who have used Morphix to build their own livecd's, and that's the whole idea of the project. Make livecd's without having to rebuild the whole damn thing at every update.
So, unless the borg get me, this is one patent that won't fly:)
OT: Having said that, there seem to be reports yesterday on our forum that Sun's Java Desktop uses Morphix's basemodule. No word on their website about any of this, so it might be a mistake. Even so, there's your evil corporate conspiricy for you...
Alex
Re:PHLAK == Knoppix for 31337 h4x0rz???
on
PHLAK 0.2 Released
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
It is, as it's a Morphix derivative. Currently, packages can be installed using dpkg, files are overlayed onto the readonly filesystem. Not sure if sieve threw in the newer 0.6 translucency in his 0.2 release, think he did, that release seems to do quite a good job in overlaying/hiding files on the cdrom.
Knoppix for 31337 h4x0rz? well, after Phlak's first release there were some people in the security business shitting themselves over it. It's not necessarily the software, there are more security livecd's, it's the accessability of those tools. Plus, they did their best to include lots of useful docs, a very complete and useful package... for all uses;)
Slashdot Mirror
The less your users know about Windows, the easier the switch will be.
I'd put up a dual boot for my aunt some time ago, she's coping fine too and asked if I could remove Windows as she wasn't using it anymore. Naturally, you shouldn't force the switch if you can't help them out in the beginning, but in that case just let them try it out and let them make up their own mind.
MB = Mega Byte, 10^6, base-10
MiB = Mega binary Byte, (2^10)^2, base-2
GB = Giga Byte, 10^9, base-10
GiB = Giga binary Byte, (2^10)^3, base-2
For more info, check the NIST standard
Intelligence is highly overrated anyway...
I don't see how a better Windows would be negative for Linux in general, it's not like all those Linux fanboys would run back. Use one, use the other or use both, and stop acting like it's a matter of life or death. They're tools, not religions.
Yeah, I have the karma to spare, mod me down. I'm just sick of everyone acting like Win-vs-Lin is important. Free software versus open source, now that is an issue! :)
Oh, and in my experience it's just a matter of education and documentation how well new users handle an OS. I personally find WinXP quite complicated, but that's because I havn't used it before.
Point is, there are plenty of old computers out there, and if we just watch the feature creep they can work perfectly as is. XFCE4 is new FOS software, snappy, isn't a memory hog and Just Works(tm). Even on my old 133 Mhz PC from 1996.
A desktop environment, imho, should just let users get stuff done, they don't have to show off their desktops with some latest craze. Leave the fluff to the games and non-free software, code for the lowest denominator and you don't leave people out.
Oh yeah, with proprietary software, companies/non-profits often don't even have a choice if they want to upgrade or not. Having a goodworking alternative for older PCs is a livesaver.
My 2 cents, flame on!
Point is that nobody knows all the answers to everything, and new users shouldn't expect more knowledgable users to know everything. That includes fstab options. The difference between so-called 'gurus' and average joe is that the former rather finds his own answers first and the latter uses someone elses.
I should now throw the give-a-man-a-fish metaphore in here, but you're guru enough to google for it
'RTFM-ing' is also the only way to save your cool when you don't know the answer :)
Seriously, I'm not kidding. But more power to him though, if he wants to state his ideas let him. Some of his comments are interesting, others are just plain wrong, but even so I find it an interesting read.
and RMS would be running around stating that the helicopter should be called GNU/Comanche instead.
Damn kids these days, they just don't know how to start a proper flamewar...
After a few days in which we were quite alarmed, Sun's technical director sent me an email to apologize and said he would fix the matter. Within no time, we got reports of being mentioned on the back of the cd covers and their website, and they sent us an evaluation cd. Our project was even mentioned in an article about JDS in the Guardian. There hasn't been much contact since, but it's good to see how quick they react.
Frankly, I didn't even think they gave a damn, but it seems that despite their size they are trying to do The Right Thing(tm). It's a pity ESR had to open his mouth like he did. They are willing to listen, but at least say something intelligent...
I'll probably include 2k4 with my next morphix game edition. ET was getting old anyway...
No, you don't want that translated, less our plan to conquer the world be discovered.
"I'm sorry JPL, I'm afraid I can't do that..."
Lack of choice, lack of options tend to lead to a lack of innovation and improvement (XFree86? Industry in Sovjet Russia?), whereas competition tends to lead to (great) improvements (US/Sovjet space race? Browser war?), so I sincerly hope no single desktop will ever rule.
In our battles we will have our finest hours.
Heck, I'd rather have Minix on my machine, at least it has a BSD-like license now. Choice is great, but don't make it seem like SkyOS is actually an improvement. It isn't, it's just some guys pet project that he doesn't want to share. Case closed.
I'm currently pretty busy on a GTK2 partitioner called PartitionMorpher, and it's nearing completion for manual partitioning. the debian-installer guys have been working a lot recently on autopartkit (from SkoleLinux), and it looks like it would be a useful addition to our installer too.
Bottom line: You'll see it sooner rather than later. But I've said that a lot in the past...
1 Hype your project, get it slashdotted!
2 Brag about your own project's activity, get it slashdotted again yourself!
3 ???
4 PROFIT!!!
Nice way to keep in the publicity though, could use his PR manager. Self-organizing systems are fun though...
Having said that, Knoppix (still) rocks :-)
However, there are pearls to be found, by people willing to reflect upon themselves and the status quo in the community. True, being the Devil's advocate might waste your karma, but more often than not these post are modded up (your 5+ insightful, anyone?) which is the whole idea of the moderation scheme: Give people the chance to voice their different opinions, if well-argumented (controversial or not) they'll be read by thousands.
In every community, you'll have generally accepted ideas and thoughts as voiced in the article. However, I really don't agree with the not-voicing of controversial ideas. Only with these ideas, arguments and good discussions can you overcome the status quo and break out of the ivory towers we lock ourselves unknowingly into.
"There are only 2 things that are infinite, the universe and the stupidity of man, and i'm not sure of the former"
That's Morphix damnit, next thing they'll be calling it Muppix and expecting green frogs jumping around...
:-)
Anyway, main reason is that cloop needs to be ported to 2.6 and everyone's too lazy to do it. Klaus is busy as hell, and everyone else is waiting for Klaus
It'll take a while, cloop needs to be ported to 2.6 first. Some gentoo-guys were working on it, but don't hold your breath, we're a lazy bunch...
:-)
(paypal-donations won't help, but few beers would lift the spirits
Have you joined our mailinglist/forums? It's great that all these derivatives are getting this much press [insert proud father-of-morphix photo], it would be even better to keep in touch and exchange bugreports & featurerequests. If you have, just ignore me, doing my best to get as much feedback as possible on the different modules...
So, unless the borg get me, this is one patent that won't fly :)
OT: Having said that, there seem to be reports yesterday on our forum that Sun's Java Desktop uses Morphix's basemodule. No word on their website about any of this, so it might be a mistake. Even so, there's your evil corporate conspiricy for you...
Alex
Knoppix for 31337 h4x0rz? well, after Phlak's first release there were some people in the security business shitting themselves over it. It's not necessarily the software, there are more security livecd's, it's the accessability of those tools. Plus, they did their best to include lots of useful docs, a very complete and useful package... for all uses ;)
Anyway, rock on sieve. Keep 'em scared :)