One of the failures of the Linux community is recognizing the fact that most users don't want and don't care about such a tool
This is your failure only, as the Linux community is well aware of the fact, and that's why distros implemented automatic partition creation at install time, since years ago. So the only failure I see is yours for being years late on Linux community.
If you want full Linux-installer-style partition and format control over a Windows install, it's there, and it's not that hard to find
It's not, it does not even work well. I just reinstalled a Windows XP one month ago, and noted all the crap (and good things) I had to go through. Installation of Windows is really tedious. No SATA support, no RAID support, hell, it could not even create more than 130 Go NTFS partition on a 160 Go disk !!! The BIOS and Mandriva recognised it without problem. Windows actually insisted on creating two partitions (2 Go and 128 Go). That's not what I call Linux-installer-style partition and format control, sorry. Linux installers have both : very easy auto partitioning (you don't even have to see the tool or format anything) and very powerful partitioning (with LVM and everything). It's not RedHat 7 anymore, try to get a clue.
Following that logic, where does one work with photos.... PhotoShop.
Your "logic" does not work in other languages than english, so it's flawed.
Secondly, I am sure you are right when you say we don't need the "brainless among the users"
It depends. If the brainless are those people that troll about a name instead of doing work with the app, we don't need the brainless.
Thirdly, you are right, I am sure the people trying to improve the usablity of OSS are doing nothing for the open source community
Except that the name has nothing to do with usability, it only have sense when talking i18n, if any. In France, Photoshop does not have more meaning than GIMP. In fact, the few people I know that have Photoshop, have cracked it, and use it for very basic things. Cracking apps is not what I call good usability, sorry, and the fact is that without training, most people can't use Photoshop.
Now, for what you convienently glossed over. Of those 20 programs in your KDE/Graphics menu, how many do you actually use? How many...
Now, for what you conveniently glossed over : have you stopped beating your wife ? Your rhetoric questions have nothing to do with app names. What gave you the urge to change subject ? Why do you ask how many apps he uses ? Do I ask you how much you value an app like Photoshop ? From the number of people I know who bought Photoshop compared to those that cracked it, I would say it's not worth anything for a lot of people. The very fact that people keep comparing Photoshop and GIMP, and the fact that in 2005, the dispute is about their name, just shows trolls are not left with a lot to disparage this great app (The GNU Image Manipulation Program I mean).
Killustrator? Is that the application that deletes your picture files?
Until : - you realise that some people don't find it as stupid as you are, that's why we see things like this http://slashdot.org/articles/01/07/02/1648243.shtm l on Slashdot. - you try not being a moron and understand that not eveybody understand english. BTW, you have a serious mental disorder, as most people will sort out "K Illustrator" instead of "Kill ustrator". So you are not qualified IMHO to talk about good or bad product names. - you spell it right KIllustrator, and you immediately look more like a moron
But even with a name like PhotoShop you have Photo in it knowing that it has something to do with photos, it may not be clear that you can do thinge beyond modifity photos but it is better then GIMP
I don't see how PhotoShop is better than GNU Image Manipulation Program. You use GIMP because you're lazy or because you know pretty well what it is (so the "marketing" works and this silly point is irrelevant). When googling for GIMP, first thing you see is the link to the site in your language, or "GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program". This topic is nothing other than a troll to try and disparage GIMP, just one more of them, there will be others, I know that.
Even with GNUs Catagories. You know it has to deal with Graphics. But on most distributions there are about 10 or so to choose from. Is it a graphic converter?, A PowerPoint like application?, A 3d Ray Tracing Program?, who knows
Let me see how stupid and uninformed you are : - Yes it is a graphic converter - No it is not a PowerPoint like application, and you know that these are cited in your OS documentation, and you know they are under "Office". I use Mandriva, some old docs are available there http://wwwnew.mandriva.com/en/community/users/docu mentation . - If you know 3D Raytracing, you're pretty knowledgeable to know the GIMP and Cinepaint, despite what you try to make me believe, but you're no average Joe anymore
Most common people don't want or like trying different applications until they find the one that does the job
You're telling me people buy expensive apps like PhotoShop without even knowing what they do, without doing some research ? You believe people understand PhotoShop right away ? I now you're comment is irrelevant, you're living in complete denial of reality.
Stop defending these bad names for these application, Change is good deal with it
We don't need to defend anything, not even stupid troll fest like this one. For non-english people, most of these names don't mean a thing anyway. These apps don't need a change of name, as long as they do the job, that's what average joe asks of them.
You're right that many people will probably regard this as splitting hairs, and this in itself is a pretty big issue
No this is not a big issue, this is BS. I wonder how we non-english speakers rest of the world did cope with your app names that, sorry to tell you this, don't mean anything to us. FOSS is actually better at names, because app names come from all other the world.
Names (from "top-level" names like application titles down to the names of lowly index variables) are critically important in usability, as is documentation
So from the situation in France, I can tell you most commercial apps have failed. Here, there are countless magazines dedicated to explain people what some app is, what it does, and how to use it.
Yet try as I might, with the notable exception of Python, I've never been able to pick up an open-source product of any complexity that I'm not familiar with, without buying an O'Reilly book or something of the like
Like in Windows. And I thought my wife was computer illiterate. She learnt herself through Digikam, I see her amazed every week at what new things she learnt to make, and the only burning program she ever understood is K3B (and yes she tried Nero).
Flame me if you will for "not trying hard enough," but it seems to me like having to try hard goes against the definition of usability in some ways. This makes for a pretty big hidden cost
No, the thing you call "trying hard" is just learning, it has nothing to do with usability.
And say what you want about Microsoft - but the level of effort they put into this front (from the easy-to-understand language in setup to the MSDN) is way ahead of what I've seen from the Linux world. I think they are the ones to be applauded in this case
Complete trollish BS again. I converted most of my neighboorhood to Linux the day I stopped supporting their Windows desktop. No one of them was able to reinstall their Windows OS once it was down, and they were ALL frightened to install even one program. BTW, no one of them is an english-speaker, and let me tell you that for them, Setup does not mean anything, they don't understand the word. So stop your BS about easy-to-understand please. In the other hand, they understand pretty well how to install apps on their Linux desktops now.
This is exactly the problem with open source software: No one is able to take constructive criticism
No this is not. Because Open Source software is not a person, so your sentence does not make any sense. Just yesterday, I was telling a troll that the "this is the problem with FOSS..." is now a standard troll sentence, which trolls use very often now. Everything and its contrary is a problem or hinder FOSS if you listen to trolls. Of course all of this is BS. There was no troll fests for days, so one zealot put the stupid periodic name thing, and the fest begins. Sad really. Sadder is that stupid trolls comments like yours is modded insightful !!
Someone mentions a problem immediately 20 people jump on him pointing to how things are really so much worse somewhere else
BS. People jump on pointing out this is irrelevant and stupid.
Application names of most Open Source software sucks
That's your opinion, not the truth nor a fact.
Wanna know why people call it Linux and not GNU/Linux? Guh-Noo-Linux is hard to say for the 99.9% of the world that doesn't speak Klingon
I know pretty well that ignorance has more to do with people saying Linux than because it is hard to say. FYI, there are people talking other languages than English in the world, but you're too clueless and english centered to understand that. By your stupid reason, 99.9 % of the world can not speak german. This is BS at best. For French people, GNU is not hard to say. Actually, the BS about names must be very
But you know what? Microsoft and Adobe have this thing called a marketing department. Spend enough on marketing people will associate Outlook with email, and Acrobat with PDFs
What that has to do with the names being inadequate ? They won't be more adequate. These are stupid arguments anyway, because only people interested in computers will get the message. My wife does not even know what MS is, despite working with their products every day. She knows Excel, she knows Word, she DON'T know Adobe, and at home, she nows perfectly well Gimp and Digikam. Only americans can discuss stupid things like names, because for non-english speakers, sorry to tell you that Media Player, Excel, Outlook, GIMP, Digikam,... do not mean ANYTHING. For a non-english speaker, 99% of Windows programs have names that they can't understand.
So to recap: Microsoft: 1) get a monopoly and 2) spend a lot on marketing 3) name your products whatever the hell you want. Open Source: 1) name your product something stupid and 2) sit around complaining about how stupid people are for not using your superior product
Straw man won't make your point stronger. You just looks more stupid.
And even if you have a monopoly and the world best marketing department, some names are just never going to sell. ie. GIMP: At best the name is confusing, at worst its offensive. GNU: hard to pronounce and even if you know what the letters stand for its confusing on multiple levels.
That's because you are stupid and english-centered. For a non-english speaker, GIMP does not mean anything, so your two options are plain wrong, so you are completely wrong. GNU is not hard to pronounce for every non-english people I know either, it's not even confusing, it's just a name. Fortunately in FOSS we think about i18n. With people like you, we would still be stuck in middle-age. My wife found Gnumeric on herself because it was named "Tableur Gnumeric" which is sth she understands. "Tableur" is the thing she understands, she would never have known just by the name or manufacturer, like on Windows.
Firefox: Has nothing to do with web browsing but they have put some effort into marketing it so they should be able to make it work
Stupid again. My wife don't know what Firefox is, but she knows pretty well what Galeon is, or even Konqueror.
you're going to be fighting an uphill battle in pro
IBM seems to skip over one of the biggest reasons to NOT use GTK+ - it just doesn't look right on Windows
Give me a break. Like you admit yourself, your "big reason" is from a commentator somewhere, you don't even remember who it was.
I'm not sure who said it but a commentator suggested a while ago that one of the reasons open-source programs weren't overtaking closed source was due to a lack of polish
Give me a break again. People will cite "one of the reasons why open-source programs don't overtake closed source" whenever they want to make feeble minded FOSS users take their side. I see people use that countless times here. Let me tell you : your first premise is wrong, so stop the BS. When someone puts out gaim on Gnome, I don't think the primary goal is to overtake closed source.
he used GAIM vs. MSN Messenger as an example
Which is a bad example. MSN Messenger won't even work on Linux without emulation. Don't BS me about polish when the app won't even work. Know your priorities. The few Gnome or GTK apps I tested on Windows platform have widgets that actually look better than the rest, showing how crude the Windows platform widgets are. Actually, Office 2003 apps have the exact same effect on a Windows XP OS : they make the rest of the OS looks outdated.
The jarring difference between controls in GTK+ or Java or even Mozilla to some extent vs Win32 is important when you're creating an application for normal end users. In my opinion, that difference can look unprofessional
MS can't even make controls in its apps the same as in its OS, and you dare talk about other toolkits looking unprofessional ? Most Windows apps don't even use the standard widgets for everything. Win platform is king of custom widget. Just look at your win32 desktop apps.
GTK+ actually has a good API documentation. What is more lacking are good up to date tutorials, and some functions are not always documented. But the framework is there for all of this to come together, once every one write documentation for every method, which is now a requirement for some libs. People can say what they want about Anjuta, but it includes plugins that uses useful things like devhelp http://developer.imendio.com/wiki/Devhelp which is a very useful tool, integrated with gtkdoc, which should be used to write all the API docs for Gnome. When I see the number of good docs available in my devhelp, I think Gnome doc is improving, and recent decisions do everything to improve the state of docs in Gnome.
What I think is sad, is that good practices are lost, because there are no good tutorials, and the most up to date book about Gnome 2 development is already out of date, to a point where if you forbid the use of deprecated methods, most of it won't even compile. Don't get me wrong, as long as you allow deprecated methods, they work just fine, but newest ones are more efficient. I just want to show how up to date doc with some examples of good practices is important for Gnome.
Fair enough, but how would you call someone who gets heated by sth that is just the truth, and has to flame because he doesn't like it ? Because that's just what you did !
Qt just can't win can they
The goal was not to say if Qt or GTK+ wins, the GP just made things straight.
But when Qt is using GPL, suddenly the GNU zealots turn around and say, hey that's bad, you can't write proprietary software with it
Read again then ! GP never said it was bad, you said that. So you are the zealot here. BTW, GP is right, calling RMS or GNU names won't make him wrong, sorry.
In fact Qt has the perfect business model
That was not what GP was discussing...
The GNU supporters should be holding Qt up as an example
Whatever, but that does not remove the fact that Qt is NOT only GPL, it's double licensed, so when someone cites "It's free software with a liberal open source license", you ought to be quick to not fool people into believing it's true whatever what you do with the software.
But I dislike disingenuous articles like the present developerworks article which pretends that GTK+ is the only toolkit that exists
That's because you are a zealot. The article never said such a thing, and actually acknowledged the existence of others toolkits. But it requires reading at least the intro to know this. Like a good zealot, you got heated before reaching this point.
You are in fact answering to an old troll (at least 2 years old) that come back from time to time, often with exact same wording. Google for some sentences, you will quickly find it even on old Slashdot discussions.
In France, we pay taxes on : - blank media (CDR, DVDR,...) depending on the size - media players (like IPod) with same criteria
and we have worse things, like red warnings on epilepsia on every games because of a stupid hoax that the government believed. I can't start to say how I feel about the situation, I prefer not:(
Resolution changes don't require a reboot, just a restart of X.
Actually they don't require a restart of X either. The only thing that require a restart of X is a depth change (though I'm not even sure that it actually requires restart of X), like from 32 bpp to 16 bpp. It was never a problem to me, and I think very few people will need to switch to less than 32 bpp (or rather 24 bpp).
I think XFree86 was upto about THREE tacked-on shell-based configuration utilities. None of them really did the job.
They were bad tools but actually did the job. For specific need they did not, and they would have a hard time doing it, as in Windows, the manufacturer is the one actually providing the tools. That's why changing graphics card often means changing tool completely on Windows, even when the manufacturer is the same. How could XOrg do so much work without even knowing the hardware ?
With Xorg, now we have one config utility and it doesn't even display a testpattern with a timeout!
No, but its doc tells you how to do just that (hint : startx). I think it even display how to test once it's finished configuring. At least that's where I found the info. Obviously, you did not even check the man page, but you are very eager to complain.
The community really should dump X11 for good
BS. Even MS is coming to the X11 model. We don't need bad advices like yours.
It has no sysadmin focus because server rooms shun it, and it has no end-user focus either
I agree for end-user, that was not the goal of X11 implementations though. Sysadmins (good ones at least) handle just fine thanks. Tell me you are a (very) bad sysadmin, I will be more eager to believe you.
What do we get for using it? That great Unix "superiority" that allows you to run applications remotely *IF* you can use ssh
You don't need ssh to run it remotely...
Meanwhile Windows users can share a window among multiple remote users and even "whiteboard" over the display, along with chat and videoconferencing. BUT!!! X11 is "superior".
You believe that because you are a moron that don't even know its facts. Messenger (or whatever the name of the MS IM client) is not the Windows windowing system. Windows users (most of them on Home, as that's what come with most PC) can actually NOT share windows at all, and surely not among multiple remote users. I know, as I tried, and came fast back to X11 and Linux, that provide this functionality since at least 1998. Actually Windows seems to be able to do that, but you need a several thousand dollars license, and you need to use another protocol (RDP). The other features you talk about are actually IM client features. I don't claim X11 is superior, but it sure has superior features, one of them its powerful extension mechanism.
Dear god, mod parent up. I couldn't agree more!!!!!
You must be a troll too then...
Changing your refresh rate, resolution or anything else is a fscking nightmare.
Actually it's not, it's very simple. There are a command line tool, and applets for both of the major DE to do just that.
The X.org guys rely on DDC information, but for those us who are hooked via BNC or any other method that doesn't provide DDC information, it's hacking the file manually.
So you complain about XOrg when the reason is your outdated hardware ?
I posted suggestions on the X mailing list in 1999 and those problems are still here today. It's 2005, in a few days it'll be 2006, can we please have a decent tool for editing / changing options?
Let me get this straight : you complain that the newest XOrg does not trip over itself to support your 80ish hardware by setting it up automagically, when your hardware does not provide the functionality, and when this work actually belongs to the manufacturer, adding the fact that XOrg gives you a workaround but you won't accept it because it means manual editing ????!!!!!! My previous 21" monitor (a Iiyama) was hooked through a VGA-BNC cable to my Linux box, and XOrg detected the DDC info without problem, and it was an old model already. You won't even find monitor with BNC anymore. The problem you're talking about that is still here today is your hardware, especially if you won't use the workaround provided to you by XOrg, and if your manufacturer won't support you. I agree about the decent tool though.
At least half the applications on my computer are OSS
There lies your problem. The other half of your app do not allow you to develop FOSS software easily. Most of my computer is OSS, and guess what, I have very little to set up to start working on a FOSS project.
It's not the quality of what OSS projects produce, it's the difficulty of getting involved. It's like a rite of passage
Actually it's not. There are several initiatives meant to help you getting involved from several big projects, which are the ones hard to get into, due to their size.
You can't just open up a compiler, read the source, and start typing code
You don't open up a compiler in FOSS. You open up an editor or an IDE. That's if you want to write code, and it's very easy. However, there are other ways to contribute to FOSS : documentation, tutorials, translations, studies, performance testing,...
Getting started is a complicated process
Of course, especially if you start from nothing. In fact, it's not complicated, there's a learning curve though.
In comparison, designing and writing code is far easier than configuring my system to prepare to join an OSS project
It just shows your system is really bad at these things. Setting a CVS or a SVN is really not difficult, IDEs on Linux manage this without problem.
Any commercial projects I've been involved in usually have their computers already configured so you can just start working, no break in stride
See ? Now, take a computer not pre configured like yours, and it's the same problem again.
For the most part, the thought of how much work it's going to be to get started keeps me from even taking the first step to get involved
So, the logical step is to create some documentation explaining all the steps required to get involved in the project. We call that a Howto or a Tutorial in FOSS. Thus, all your hard work is not lost once you give up. That's how FOSS makes progress.
I spent many hours just trying to configure my system to get involved with the Mozilla project
So start small. The Mozilla project for Christ's sake !!! When you can't even build it properly !!! The first step should of course, to have a system which can at least compile things correctly.
the day that software developers don't also need to be System Configuration Experts, the progress of OSS will skyrocket
They just need to be developers. Setting up a development environment is not being a System Configuration Expert.
If there were simply an executable file that you run and it setup a complete environment where you can just start typing code and contribute, OSS would progress at light speed
Wrong. If you don't understand the dev environment, I fail to see how you could improve anything.
because much less capable developers could still contribute with small bug fixes, or even clarifying comments, adding comments, or just restructuring code modules
How could they do that without inderstanding the dev environment ? How could they improve anything, if they don't even have the incentive to set up a dev environment ? Developing FOSS is harder than setting the environment really.
Some people might think that's a bad idea because complete idiots could try to participate, but there's numerous ways around that like ranking/priority systems attached to code reviews
So you ask "why do things the simple way if we can do it the hard way" ? This is nonsense. I'm no developer and I can set up a development environment and contribute to FOSS projects, and I don't always propose sane or useful patches. Imagine if people less knowledgeable than me could do the same !!
Mouse of more than 3 buttons : Check ! Next XOrg will allow a lot more than you can actually. You can even use several pointing devices simultaneously at present. setting X to use multiple resolutions or refresh rates : Check. The big desktops even have applets for this. creating a binary program that can run on different distros : Check. Try any Loki game, or to have something free, just try the latest Privateer Remake. creating a device driver that doesn't require a kernel patch : Check. Most comes as modules, which don't require any kernel patch. copy/pasting to and from any app with multiple data types : Check. It's up to the application to do sth with it then. What you say is useless though. More useful would be to have uniform mime types between apps.
As for your braindead things, they are indeed braindead: - A preview mode, of course, should be read-only. FYI, in KDE, you can choose what to do when clicking or double-clicking a file, it's written in the help accessible with the big rescue icon. You just showed that you are ignorant and don't want to learn. - You could not figure out how to create a desktop shortcut to an app !! Same answer as above. FYI there are several ways, one of them is to just drag and drop the icon from the menu to the desktop - The copy, close app, copy disappear was a known problem and is now fixed - Your detailed experience shows you were inexperienced and chose to use a FTP Install (!!!) of a downloaded distro (!!!), and then had install problems because you did everything like in Windows. Summary : a moronic choice for a beginner. Perhaps you thought you were a computer expert.
When it comes to open source altenatives of programs that actually, you know, have regular update cycles (Photoshop vs Gimp, OpenOffice vs MS Office, etc), the open source version is always trying to play catch-up and rarely actually matches the quality of the original before that original suddenly gets it's next big update and surges further ahead
Your sentence is true only if you specifically focus on the features where the FOSS projects play catch-up. It's completely wrong otherwise. For example, the Gimp has numerous features and plugins more powerful than anything on Photoshop (like the one that remove seamlessly objects from an image, better raw support,...), same for OOo (PDF, works native on Linux, repair MS Office files,...). What you say border to the straw man, as Gimp is not an Open Source version of Photoshop, nor OOo is one of MS Office (they use very different ways to handle the document for example).
What is the reason for this?
there is none because it is a straw man.
One reason is focused/centralized design, a concept that (from my understanding, at least) is in conflict with open source development
BS. Look at Inkscape and how their goal for each version, look at KDE and Gnome for some examples too, and then stop the BS. I look at Pango, and the focused design was not incompatible with the development.
As the original article pointed out, open source development is usually obsessed with things that, frankly, don't usually require that level of obsession, while ignoring things that actually do need to be looked at
What are those things ?
Yes, it ends up GREATELY excelling at the things it obsesses with (security is usually the big example being touted)
BS again, security is not the greatest thing FOSS focus on. Stability, efficiency, accuracy, interoperability, i18n, accessibility are other areas that FOSS is obsessed with. You say all of this does not require such a level of obsession ?!!
Open Source authors tend to be rather bad about listening to their user base- the snotty answer is "if YOU want it to do X, then code it yourself"
No, you're wrong, they rarely do that in fact. Most are rather good at listening to their user base, in contrary to your belief. The answer you cited comes mostly from other people trying to defend the developers or to shut off trolls or astroturfers. Your straw man is not the truth. Developers will tell you they don't intend to develop such or such function, they won't tell you harshly to code it yourself, but will ask you gently if you can contribute the code. That's the behaviour I see on the ML.
and many times reported bugs that are annoying current users are put off or ignored, often because the development version is almost ready to go stable, and fixing the bug would be "a pain"
Another straw man, stop it already. Behaviours change greatly depending on size of the project and resources of developers. You try like mad to make FOSS devs look bad, putting them all in the same bag.
And then you add a mix of false facts, false consequences,... You're an obvious troll too, sentences like "people try it and often run right back to Windows" are obvious examples of trolling.
I've used Linux since about 1995, and I still can't stand all the -bullshit- that's necessary to get hardware working
That's because you're an astroturfer too. I knew Linux 3 years after you, and I know perfectly well why some hardware don't work on Linux, and sure enough, it's not because of buggy FOSS.
I last used Linux as a workstation back in 2000, and a few months ago I found not much had changed
That's because you're a troll. The progress has been amazing since 2000 (Gnome 2, KDE 3, kernel 2.6,...) but only a troll could not see it.
I dropped an Ubuntu 5.10 CD into my athlon workstation which has a Geforce3 card in it, and a 17" Viewsonic monitor....I downloaded drivers from Nvidia's site, and installed them by hand, and it finally worked
And during all this time, you never realised: - How advanced the desktop was compared to 2000 - That you had a menu option to send your hardware config and what went wrong to Ubuntu ? So of course, you did not contribute anything.
I then tried to figure out how to change my screen saver. It wasn't in the Gnome menus- I finally found it under a "debian" menu elsewhere. Apparently my system has at least two "system settings" menus. What the...
Now you mistake Ubuntu choices with buggy software...
There are some truly brilliant, talented people working on linux and open-source. Unfortuntely, they're bogged down in nearly useless work, or busy infighting
I think you should leave 2000 behind. Freedesktop is an evidence that what you say is false.
My favorite time-sinks are the incredibly obscure security holes that are so impractical nobody could ever exploit them
Now you assert that you are either a MS shill, a moron or both.
Ask yourself this: what does Linux do better today compared with in 2000, almost 6 years ago? I'm not talking about crap like antialiased text- I mean things that actually MATTER to users...
- Hardware compatibility - One of the best i18n platform - Lots of powerful tools available (all I actually need) that where not so good in 2000 - Office - System efficience - Live systems - Multimedia I forgot a lot, but I think it will be sufficient to debunk your stupid question.
Ask yourself this as well: when was the last time an open-source project you help out with surveyed its users to find out what was most important to THEM?
This week on gnome-desktop.org, there was at least one story on Slashdot too about that. Now go back to other astrotur
I can think of very few systems that have been around as long as DOS/Windows and have better backwards compatibility. I can think of only one Windows program that runs on an earlier version but not XP
Well, you can think, that's good. If you could think right, it would be better. I can show you lots of programs that ran on Win9x and don't work in WinXP (my TV card capture program and its codecs are one of them). Or that work on XP, but not as intended, but I supposed that counts as "works" for you (VirtualDub capture is one of these programs).
Look no further than Windows XP SP2.
Your experience and your thinking is clearly not representative of the majority.
I can -- and have -- set up, to a functional, networked state, all of the systems above, and can troubleshoot them when things go wrong, given a couple books, google, and a few days
Strangely enough, what you describe below just shows the contrary to what you say here.
However, Linux is by no means a better solution, at least for me
Two problems start appearing here: - You equate Fedora Core 4 with Linux - As it shows below, you did not look at which distro was right given your hardware
Bottom line is, I had MUCH more frustration getting all of this to work under Fedora Core 4, and spent about 10 times more time than I did setting up Windows
Obviously, especially under Fedora Core adn with all these special hardwares.
I decided to say, "Screw this," and reinstalled Windows again
I would never have wiped out Windows, especially since you're not compelled to do that when installing Linux.
As to your set up problems with Linux, I'm sure they are genuine. But I don't understand why you say that your example is a good example of why Linux is not a good solution for you. You always used Windows at home, and bought hardware adequate for your environment. If you had used Linux (like I did), you would have done the same, and perhaps would not have bought the same hardware, but only hardware you know works well in Linux. All those hardware whose company won't support on Linux, if they work, that's not because of magic, but because of people dedicated to make them work, at least for them. Bringing Linux in the middle of all this hardware, it's not surprising some of it doesn't work.
Then you speak of GTKPod crashing (you had to find an app crashing, going with a beta was a good bet), get emotional about OOo and Thunderbird, are forced to say sth good about Firefox, try to say all kind of bad things about MPlayer and what you think is standard behaviour for audio on a Gnome desktop, to finish with stupidity about you updating your kernel and breaking your binary drivers, because of course, you tested all of that on a downloaded distro, which is for experienced linux users. Of course, you would not test a distribution aimed at you, which means a commercial desktop distro. Given your level of understanding of Linux, how can you say it's not better for you when trying a test distro for RedHat ? Your rant starting well, to finish in a zealot flame fest.
And yes, I know, the Linux zealots will gasp with outrage and say, "It's not OUR fault that Linux doesn't support your hardware, you have hardware that's no good / unsupported / unreliable!"
You go in zealotry again. What was the purpose of this sentence of yours ?
And I'll simply respond with this: If that's the most substantive thing you can say to someone who spent 2 months giving Fedora Core 4 a "fair shake", go f*** yourself
Ah, that was the purpose : a straw man to go in a flame fest with zealots. Sad really.
My computer is a tool -- for communication, for productivity, for enjoying my spare time, or doing a bit of learning... my computer is NOT a statement of political philosophy
Me neither. Your rhetoric is not efficient. My computers and hardware just adapted to my needs, not the other way around, like for you.
If I have to sacrifice that much of my time, enjoyment, and ability to communicate with my computer in order to make some noble statement about freedom and choice
Your (our) problem starts as soon as you say that freedom and choice are just noble statements. Some people died for those you know, I don't think they wanted to. And you talk about sacrifice ? I told you your rhetoric is not efficient. At least, try not to look high on those that strive to be free. They are no less respectable than you, try to show these people some respect. Because you can't do it, does not mean others are moron.
I just can't understand why people can't seem to see that Mi
Your experience is not the be all end all of OS use. My experience is different from yours. yes, back in 2001 I had Windows XP blue screen on install, because of the driver for my Adaptec SCSI card, a driver certified and included in Windows XP. It was in the knowledge base, I think it was http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314063/ , but I'm not sure, as I never found the problem from the search option of MS knowledge basde, but from Google. I haven't seen lots of blue screen since then, mostly for 2 reasons : - Windows will lock instead of displaying a BSOD (so it's worse than before, you can't even search the web for some of the numbers the BSOD gave you) - I'm exclusively using Linux at home since Jan. 2001 But I've seen another BSOD in 2003 on XP, when my sound card died (one of the first SB Live !). When I installed Linux to investigate, it worked flawlessly, except with no sound, and the log said the sound card had a problem. So I don't understand why Windows BSOD when Linux could report the problem and tag along. Of course, it was a hardware problem like you said.
So you have not seen BSOD, but that does not mean it's true for everyone, or that Win XP is robust.
i hate to tell you this, but 99.9% of computer users want pointy clicky stuff in some form
I hate to tell you this, but no, they don't !! They have a job to do, which means data to deal with. Except for people doing games all day long, I don't see how they would want or use pointy clicky stuff all day. There's a reason you can't be as productive without keyboard as without mouse. Each time I see this nonsense written, I shake my head in disbelief.
they do not want to undestand how computers work, and they never will
They don't have to. But they at least have to learn how to use a keyboard. Oh wait, they already do. Most of most people's work in computing is done with the keyboard, not the mouse, and it does not imply knowing how the computer works.
and why should they learn any of this crap?
But you are the one saying they have to. Nobody else than you ! So answer your own stupid question.
for 99.9% of the population, computers are or will soon be appliances that you turn on, play games, read your email, browse the web, and then turn them off
You are plain wrong. In a work environment, your "computer" has no value. You thought "entertainment" and entirely forgot "work". What you describe already exist btw.
99.9% of the people don't want to learn this stuff either. they have their families and other outside interests and other interesting things that they would rather spend them time on.
But you know, some people actually do work with computers, and they have to learn these things, as everybody needs to learn his job. And they need the job to have the money to go on spending their time on what you cited.
don't be a tech snob
Don't be an entertainment fool. We are not all like you, playgin all day long, some of us have to work with computers, you know.
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
That would be you then.
Why the anger ? You proposed the iBook for the primary goal, but your choice was destroyed by the 3rd goal, that must be why. You proposed an EyeTV for second goal, which is already one hardware too much compared to the solution the guy came with. It's also a lot more expensive solution overall (especially since you must buy 4 of each hardware), destroying the 3rd goal again. What's worse, is that the EyeTV sure enough can't play everything MPlayer does (we're talking fansubs here). Still worse, with all your expensive hardware, you still can not provide all the functionality the guy had, like touchscreen. The Mac Mini is not a solution either, and sure enough is harder to configure with the software needed. And it's more expensive too. I did not see anything better in what you proposed, and did not see anything easier too.
As soon as you come with a valid, sensible question.
Considering the entirety of the anime industry is suffering from reduced sales, why is it that a method that is effectively illegal being promoted while the companies that produced this stuff, and legally license it, get the shaft?
There lies the problem : your assumptions and hatred. I'll believe your word that anime industry is suffering from reduced sales, even though I know two thing : - This has nothing to do with conventions, which in my experience, are more like promotional fests than anything (these are not copy parties) - State of anime industry was far worse some years ago, especially outside of Japan
The method described here is not illegal either. Perhaps the purpose is, you don't actually know, I don't either, but you're eager to say it is illegal, without knowing if the convention got authorization to play the anime. We in France have conventions too, and most of them get free authorizations to play anime, we even get masters, so I guess in the USA, you can too. I don't understand either why you say people that licensed the anime got the shaft. You don't even know if the fansubs where TV broadcasts or not !!
So you assume a lot to disparage the method. I can only associate such behaviour with hatred on your part. I may be wrong, just like you. Perhaps what impressed you was the "3 days worth of anime", which actually is not a lot for a convention.
Slashdot Mirror
While patches may be a little lacking in expediency (sp?) it couldn't be easier to do
That's because with your enterprise licence, you did not have to validate your version of Windows XP.
One of the failures of the Linux community is recognizing the fact that most users don't want and don't care about such a tool
This is your failure only, as the Linux community is well aware of the fact, and that's why distros implemented automatic partition creation at install time, since years ago.
So the only failure I see is yours for being years late on Linux community.
If you want full Linux-installer-style partition and format control over a Windows install, it's there, and it's not that hard to find
It's not, it does not even work well. I just reinstalled a Windows XP one month ago, and noted all the crap (and good things) I had to go through. Installation of Windows is really tedious.
No SATA support, no RAID support, hell, it could not even create more than 130 Go NTFS partition on a 160 Go disk !!! The BIOS and Mandriva recognised it without problem. Windows actually insisted on creating two partitions (2 Go and 128 Go).
That's not what I call Linux-installer-style partition and format control, sorry.
Linux installers have both : very easy auto partitioning (you don't even have to see the tool or format anything) and very powerful partitioning (with LVM and everything).
It's not RedHat 7 anymore, try to get a clue.
Following that logic, where does one work with photos....
...
PhotoShop.
Your "logic" does not work in other languages than english, so it's flawed.
Secondly, I am sure you are right when you say we don't need the "brainless among the users"
It depends. If the brainless are those people that troll about a name instead of doing work with the app, we don't need the brainless.
Thirdly, you are right, I am sure the people trying to improve the usablity of OSS are doing nothing for the open source community
Except that the name has nothing to do with usability, it only have sense when talking i18n, if any.
In France, Photoshop does not have more meaning than GIMP.
In fact, the few people I know that have Photoshop, have cracked it, and use it for very basic things.
Cracking apps is not what I call good usability, sorry, and the fact is that without training, most people can't use Photoshop.
Now, for what you convienently glossed over. Of those 20 programs in your KDE/Graphics menu, how many do you actually use? How many
Now, for what you conveniently glossed over : have you stopped beating your wife ?
Your rhetoric questions have nothing to do with app names. What gave you the urge to change subject ?
Why do you ask how many apps he uses ? Do I ask you how much you value an app like Photoshop ?
From the number of people I know who bought Photoshop compared to those that cracked it, I would say it's not worth anything for a lot of people.
The very fact that people keep comparing Photoshop and GIMP, and the fact that in 2005, the dispute is about their name, just shows trolls are not left with a lot to disparage this great app (The GNU Image Manipulation Program I mean).
Killustrator? Is that the application that deletes your picture files?
m l on Slashdot.
Until :
- you realise that some people don't find it as stupid as you are, that's why we see things like this http://slashdot.org/articles/01/07/02/1648243.sht
- you try not being a moron and understand that not eveybody understand english. BTW, you have a serious mental disorder, as most people will sort out "K Illustrator" instead of "Kill ustrator". So you are not qualified IMHO to talk about good or bad product names.
- you spell it right KIllustrator, and you immediately look more like a moron
But even with a name like PhotoShop you have Photo in it knowing that it has something to do with photos, it may not be clear that you can do thinge beyond modifity photos but it is better then GIMP
u mentation .
I don't see how PhotoShop is better than GNU Image Manipulation Program. You use GIMP because you're lazy or because you know pretty well what it is (so the "marketing" works and this silly point is irrelevant). When googling for GIMP, first thing you see is the link to the site in your language, or "GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program".
This topic is nothing other than a troll to try and disparage GIMP, just one more of them, there will be others, I know that.
Even with GNUs Catagories. You know it has to deal with Graphics. But on most distributions there are about 10 or so to choose from. Is it a graphic converter?, A PowerPoint like application?, A 3d Ray Tracing Program?, who knows
Let me see how stupid and uninformed you are :
- Yes it is a graphic converter
- No it is not a PowerPoint like application, and you know that these are cited in your OS documentation, and you know they are under "Office". I use Mandriva, some old docs are available there http://wwwnew.mandriva.com/en/community/users/doc
- If you know 3D Raytracing, you're pretty knowledgeable to know the GIMP and Cinepaint, despite what you try to make me believe, but you're no average Joe anymore
Most common people don't want or like trying different applications until they find the one that does the job
You're telling me people buy expensive apps like PhotoShop without even knowing what they do, without doing some research ? You believe people understand PhotoShop right away ?
I now you're comment is irrelevant, you're living in complete denial of reality.
Stop defending these bad names for these application, Change is good deal with it
We don't need to defend anything, not even stupid troll fest like this one.
For non-english people, most of these names don't mean a thing anyway. These apps don't need a change of name, as long as they do the job, that's what average joe asks of them.
You're right that many people will probably regard this as splitting hairs, and this in itself is a pretty big issue
No this is not a big issue, this is BS. I wonder how we non-english speakers rest of the world did cope with your app names that, sorry to tell you this, don't mean anything to us. FOSS is actually better at names, because app names come from all other the world.
Names (from "top-level" names like application titles down to the names of lowly index variables) are critically important in usability, as is documentation
So from the situation in France, I can tell you most commercial apps have failed. Here, there are countless magazines dedicated to explain people what some app is, what it does, and how to use it.
Yet try as I might, with the notable exception of Python, I've never been able to pick up an open-source product of any complexity that I'm not familiar with, without buying an O'Reilly book or something of the like
Like in Windows. And I thought my wife was computer illiterate. She learnt herself through Digikam, I see her amazed every week at what new things she learnt to make, and the only burning program she ever understood is K3B (and yes she tried Nero).
Flame me if you will for "not trying hard enough," but it seems to me like having to try hard goes against the definition of usability in some ways. This makes for a pretty big hidden cost
No, the thing you call "trying hard" is just learning, it has nothing to do with usability.
And say what you want about Microsoft - but the level of effort they put into this front (from the easy-to-understand language in setup to the MSDN) is way ahead of what I've seen from the Linux world. I think they are the ones to be applauded in this case
Complete trollish BS again. I converted most of my neighboorhood to Linux the day I stopped supporting their Windows desktop. No one of them was able to reinstall their Windows OS once it was down, and they were ALL frightened to install even one program.
BTW, no one of them is an english-speaker, and let me tell you that for them, Setup does not mean anything, they don't understand the word. So stop your BS about easy-to-understand please.
In the other hand, they understand pretty well how to install apps on their Linux desktops now.
This is exactly the problem with open source software: No one is able to take constructive criticism
..." is now a standard troll sentence, which trolls use very often now. Everything and its contrary is a problem or hinder FOSS if you listen to trolls. Of course all of this is BS.
... do not mean ANYTHING.
No this is not. Because Open Source software is not a person, so your sentence does not make any sense.
Just yesterday, I was telling a troll that the "this is the problem with FOSS
There was no troll fests for days, so one zealot put the stupid periodic name thing, and the fest begins.
Sad really. Sadder is that stupid trolls comments like yours is modded insightful !!
Someone mentions a problem immediately 20 people jump on him pointing to how things are really so much worse somewhere else
BS. People jump on pointing out this is irrelevant and stupid.
Application names of most Open Source software sucks
That's your opinion, not the truth nor a fact.
Wanna know why people call it Linux and not GNU/Linux? Guh-Noo-Linux is hard to say for the 99.9% of the world that doesn't speak Klingon
I know pretty well that ignorance has more to do with people saying Linux than because it is hard to say.
FYI, there are people talking other languages than English in the world, but you're too clueless and english centered to understand that. By your stupid reason, 99.9 % of the world can not speak german.
This is BS at best. For French people, GNU is not hard to say.
Actually, the BS about names must be very
But you know what? Microsoft and Adobe have this thing called a marketing department. Spend enough on marketing people will associate Outlook with email, and Acrobat with PDFs
What that has to do with the names being inadequate ? They won't be more adequate.
These are stupid arguments anyway, because only people interested in computers will get the message.
My wife does not even know what MS is, despite working with their products every day. She knows Excel, she knows Word, she DON'T know Adobe, and at home, she nows perfectly well Gimp and Digikam.
Only americans can discuss stupid things like names, because for non-english speakers, sorry to tell you that Media Player, Excel, Outlook, GIMP, Digikam,
For a non-english speaker, 99% of Windows programs have names that they can't understand.
So to recap: Microsoft: 1) get a monopoly and 2) spend a lot on marketing 3) name your products whatever the hell you want. Open Source: 1) name your product something stupid and 2) sit around complaining about how stupid people are for not using your superior product
Straw man won't make your point stronger. You just looks more stupid.
And even if you have a monopoly and the world best marketing department, some names are just never going to sell. ie. GIMP: At best the name is confusing, at worst its offensive. GNU: hard to pronounce and even if you know what the letters stand for its confusing on multiple levels.
That's because you are stupid and english-centered. For a non-english speaker, GIMP does not mean anything, so your two options are plain wrong, so you are completely wrong. GNU is not hard to pronounce for every non-english people I know either, it's not even confusing, it's just a name.
Fortunately in FOSS we think about i18n. With people like you, we would still be stuck in middle-age.
My wife found Gnumeric on herself because it was named "Tableur Gnumeric" which is sth she understands. "Tableur" is the thing she understands, she would never have known just by the name or manufacturer, like on Windows.
Firefox: Has nothing to do with web browsing but they have put some effort into marketing it so they should be able to make it work
Stupid again. My wife don't know what Firefox is, but she knows pretty well what Galeon is, or even Konqueror.
you're going to be fighting an uphill battle in pro
IBM seems to skip over one of the biggest reasons to NOT use GTK+ - it just doesn't look right on Windows
Give me a break. Like you admit yourself, your "big reason" is from a commentator somewhere, you don't even remember who it was.
I'm not sure who said it but a commentator suggested a while ago that one of the reasons open-source programs weren't overtaking closed source was due to a lack of polish
Give me a break again. People will cite "one of the reasons why open-source programs don't overtake closed source" whenever they want to make feeble minded FOSS users take their side. I see people use that countless times here. Let me tell you : your first premise is wrong, so stop the BS.
When someone puts out gaim on Gnome, I don't think the primary goal is to overtake closed source.
he used GAIM vs. MSN Messenger as an example
Which is a bad example. MSN Messenger won't even work on Linux without emulation.
Don't BS me about polish when the app won't even work. Know your priorities.
The few Gnome or GTK apps I tested on Windows platform have widgets that actually look better than the rest, showing how crude the Windows platform widgets are. Actually, Office 2003 apps have the exact same effect on a Windows XP OS : they make the rest of the OS looks outdated.
The jarring difference between controls in GTK+ or Java or even Mozilla to some extent vs Win32 is important when you're creating an application for normal end users. In my opinion, that difference can look unprofessional
MS can't even make controls in its apps the same as in its OS, and you dare talk about other toolkits looking unprofessional ?
Most Windows apps don't even use the standard widgets for everything. Win platform is king of custom widget. Just look at your win32 desktop apps.
GTK+ actually has a good API documentation.
What is more lacking are good up to date tutorials, and some functions are not always documented.
But the framework is there for all of this to come together, once every one write documentation for every method, which is now a requirement for some libs.
People can say what they want about Anjuta, but it includes plugins that uses useful things like devhelp http://developer.imendio.com/wiki/Devhelp which is a very useful tool, integrated with gtkdoc, which should be used to write all the API docs for Gnome.
When I see the number of good docs available in my devhelp, I think Gnome doc is improving, and recent decisions do everything to improve the state of docs in Gnome.
What I think is sad, is that good practices are lost, because there are no good tutorials, and the most up to date book about Gnome 2 development is already out of date, to a point where if you forbid the use of deprecated methods, most of it won't even compile. Don't get me wrong, as long as you allow deprecated methods, they work just fine, but newest ones are more efficient. I just want to show how up to date doc with some examples of good practices is important for Gnome.
I just hate the GNU zealots
...
Fair enough, but how would you call someone who gets heated by sth that is just the truth, and has to flame because he doesn't like it ? Because that's just what you did !
Qt just can't win can they
The goal was not to say if Qt or GTK+ wins, the GP just made things straight.
But when Qt is using GPL, suddenly the GNU zealots turn around and say, hey that's bad, you can't write proprietary software with it
Read again then ! GP never said it was bad, you said that. So you are the zealot here.
BTW, GP is right, calling RMS or GNU names won't make him wrong, sorry.
In fact Qt has the perfect business model
That was not what GP was discussing
The GNU supporters should be holding Qt up as an example
Whatever, but that does not remove the fact that Qt is NOT only GPL, it's double licensed, so when someone cites "It's free software with a liberal open source license", you ought to be quick to not fool people into believing it's true whatever what you do with the software.
But I dislike disingenuous articles like the present developerworks article which pretends that GTK+ is the only toolkit that exists
That's because you are a zealot. The article never said such a thing, and actually acknowledged the existence of others toolkits. But it requires reading at least the intro to know this.
Like a good zealot, you got heated before reaching this point.
You are in fact answering to an old troll (at least 2 years old) that come back from time to time, often with exact same wording.
...
Google for some sentences, you will quickly find it even on old Slashdot discussions.
So that you're not fooled next time
In France, we pay taxes on : ...) depending on the size
:(
- blank media (CDR, DVDR,
- media players (like IPod) with same criteria
and we have worse things, like red warnings on epilepsia on every games because of a stupid hoax that the government believed.
I can't start to say how I feel about the situation, I prefer not
Resolution changes don't require a reboot, just a restart of X.
Actually they don't require a restart of X either. The only thing that require a restart of X is a depth change (though I'm not even sure that it actually requires restart of X), like from 32 bpp to 16 bpp.
It was never a problem to me, and I think very few people will need to switch to less than 32 bpp (or rather 24 bpp).
I think XFree86 was upto about THREE tacked-on shell-based configuration utilities. None of them really did the job.
...
They were bad tools but actually did the job.
For specific need they did not, and they would have a hard time doing it, as in Windows, the manufacturer is the one actually providing the tools. That's why changing graphics card often means changing tool completely on Windows, even when the manufacturer is the same. How could XOrg do so much work without even knowing the hardware ?
With Xorg, now we have one config utility and it doesn't even display a testpattern with a timeout!
No, but its doc tells you how to do just that (hint : startx). I think it even display how to test once it's finished configuring. At least that's where I found the info. Obviously, you did not even check the man page, but you are very eager to complain.
The community really should dump X11 for good
BS. Even MS is coming to the X11 model. We don't need bad advices like yours.
It has no sysadmin focus because server rooms shun it, and it has no end-user focus either
I agree for end-user, that was not the goal of X11 implementations though. Sysadmins (good ones at least) handle just fine thanks.
Tell me you are a (very) bad sysadmin, I will be more eager to believe you.
What do we get for using it? That great Unix "superiority" that allows you to run applications remotely *IF* you can use ssh
You don't need ssh to run it remotely
Meanwhile Windows users can share a window among multiple remote users and even "whiteboard" over the display, along with chat and videoconferencing. BUT!!! X11 is "superior".
You believe that because you are a moron that don't even know its facts.
Messenger (or whatever the name of the MS IM client) is not the Windows windowing system. Windows users (most of them on Home, as that's what come with most PC) can actually NOT share windows at all, and surely not among multiple remote users. I know, as I tried, and came fast back to X11 and Linux, that provide this functionality since at least 1998. Actually Windows seems to be able to do that, but you need a several thousand dollars license, and you need to use another protocol (RDP). The other features you talk about are actually IM client features.
I don't claim X11 is superior, but it sure has superior features, one of them its powerful extension mechanism.
Dear god, mod parent up. I couldn't agree more!!!!!
...
You must be a troll too then
Changing your refresh rate, resolution or anything else is a fscking nightmare.
Actually it's not, it's very simple. There are a command line tool, and applets for both of the major DE to do just that.
The X.org guys rely on DDC information, but for those us who are hooked via BNC or any other method that doesn't provide DDC information, it's hacking the file manually.
So you complain about XOrg when the reason is your outdated hardware ?
I posted suggestions on the X mailing list in 1999 and those problems are still here today. It's 2005, in a few days it'll be 2006, can we please have a decent tool for editing / changing options?
Let me get this straight : you complain that the newest XOrg does not trip over itself to support your 80ish hardware by setting it up automagically, when your hardware does not provide the functionality, and when this work actually belongs to the manufacturer, adding the fact that XOrg gives you a workaround but you won't accept it because it means manual editing ????!!!!!!
My previous 21" monitor (a Iiyama) was hooked through a VGA-BNC cable to my Linux box, and XOrg detected the DDC info without problem, and it was an old model already.
You won't even find monitor with BNC anymore.
The problem you're talking about that is still here today is your hardware, especially if you won't use the workaround provided to you by XOrg, and if your manufacturer won't support you.
I agree about the decent tool though.
At least half the applications on my computer are OSS
...
There lies your problem. The other half of your app do not allow you to develop FOSS software easily.
Most of my computer is OSS, and guess what, I have very little to set up to start working on a FOSS project.
It's not the quality of what OSS projects produce, it's the difficulty of getting involved. It's like a rite of passage
Actually it's not. There are several initiatives meant to help you getting involved from several big projects, which are the ones hard to get into, due to their size.
You can't just open up a compiler, read the source, and start typing code
You don't open up a compiler in FOSS. You open up an editor or an IDE. That's if you want to write code, and it's very easy. However, there are other ways to contribute to FOSS : documentation, tutorials, translations, studies, performance testing,
Getting started is a complicated process
Of course, especially if you start from nothing. In fact, it's not complicated, there's a learning curve though.
In comparison, designing and writing code is far easier than configuring my system to prepare to join an OSS project
It just shows your system is really bad at these things. Setting a CVS or a SVN is really not difficult, IDEs on Linux manage this without problem.
Any commercial projects I've been involved in usually have their computers already configured so you can just start working, no break in stride
See ? Now, take a computer not pre configured like yours, and it's the same problem again.
For the most part, the thought of how much work it's going to be to get started keeps me from even taking the first step to get involved
So, the logical step is to create some documentation explaining all the steps required to get involved in the project. We call that a Howto or a Tutorial in FOSS. Thus, all your hard work is not lost once you give up. That's how FOSS makes progress.
I spent many hours just trying to configure my system to get involved with the Mozilla project
So start small. The Mozilla project for Christ's sake !!! When you can't even build it properly !!!
The first step should of course, to have a system which can at least compile things correctly.
the day that software developers don't also need to be System Configuration Experts, the progress of OSS will skyrocket
They just need to be developers. Setting up a development environment is not being a System Configuration Expert.
If there were simply an executable file that you run and it setup a complete environment where you can just start typing code and contribute, OSS would progress at light speed
Wrong. If you don't understand the dev environment, I fail to see how you could improve anything.
because much less capable developers could still contribute with small bug fixes, or even clarifying comments, adding comments, or just restructuring code modules
How could they do that without inderstanding the dev environment ?
How could they improve anything, if they don't even have the incentive to set up a dev environment ?
Developing FOSS is harder than setting the environment really.
Some people might think that's a bad idea because complete idiots could try to participate, but there's numerous ways around that like ranking/priority systems attached to code reviews
So you ask "why do things the simple way if we can do it the hard way" ? This is nonsense.
I'm no developer and I can set up a development environment and contribute to FOSS projects, and I don't always propose sane or useful patches. Imagine if people less knowledgeable than me could do the same !!
Stop making a fool of yourself please !!!
Mouse of more than 3 buttons : Check ! Next XOrg will allow a lot more than you can actually. You can even use several pointing devices simultaneously at present.
setting X to use multiple resolutions or refresh rates : Check. The big desktops even have applets for this.
creating a binary program that can run on different distros : Check. Try any Loki game, or to have something free, just try the latest Privateer Remake.
creating a device driver that doesn't require a kernel patch : Check. Most comes as modules, which don't require any kernel patch.
copy/pasting to and from any app with multiple data types : Check. It's up to the application to do sth with it then. What you say is useless though. More useful would be to have uniform mime types between apps.
As for your braindead things, they are indeed braindead:
- A preview mode, of course, should be read-only. FYI, in KDE, you can choose what to do when clicking or double-clicking a file, it's written in the help accessible with the big rescue icon. You just showed that you are ignorant and don't want to learn.
- You could not figure out how to create a desktop shortcut to an app !! Same answer as above. FYI there are several ways, one of them is to just drag and drop the icon from the menu to the desktop
- The copy, close app, copy disappear was a known problem and is now fixed
- Your detailed experience shows you were inexperienced and chose to use a FTP Install (!!!) of a downloaded distro (!!!), and then had install problems because you did everything like in Windows. Summary : a moronic choice for a beginner. Perhaps you thought you were a computer expert.
When it comes to open source altenatives of programs that actually, you know, have regular update cycles (Photoshop vs Gimp, OpenOffice vs MS Office, etc), the open source version is always trying to play catch-up and rarely actually matches the quality of the original before that original suddenly gets it's next big update and surges further ahead
...), same for OOo (PDF, works native on Linux, repair MS Office files, ...).
Your sentence is true only if you specifically focus on the features where the FOSS projects play catch-up.
It's completely wrong otherwise. For example, the Gimp has numerous features and plugins more powerful than anything on Photoshop (like the one that remove seamlessly objects from an image, better raw support,
What you say border to the straw man, as Gimp is not an Open Source version of Photoshop, nor OOo is one of MS Office (they use very different ways to handle the document for example).
What is the reason for this?
there is none because it is a straw man.
One reason is focused/centralized design, a concept that (from my understanding, at least) is in conflict with open source development
BS. Look at Inkscape and how their goal for each version, look at KDE and Gnome for some examples too, and then stop the BS.
I look at Pango, and the focused design was not incompatible with the development.
As the original article pointed out, open source development is usually obsessed with things that, frankly, don't usually require that level of obsession, while ignoring things that actually do need to be looked at
What are those things ?
Yes, it ends up GREATELY excelling at the things it obsesses with (security is usually the big example being touted)
BS again, security is not the greatest thing FOSS focus on. Stability, efficiency, accuracy, interoperability, i18n, accessibility are other areas that FOSS is obsessed with. You say all of this does not require such a level of obsession ?!!
Strong words aside, the guy is right
...
...) but only a troll could not see it.
...I downloaded drivers from Nvidia's site, and installed them by hand, and it finally worked
:
...
No he's not, he's an obvious troll.
Open Source authors tend to be rather bad about listening to their user base- the snotty answer is "if YOU want it to do X, then code it yourself"
No, you're wrong, they rarely do that in fact. Most are rather good at listening to their user base, in contrary to your belief. The answer you cited comes mostly from other people trying to defend the developers or to shut off trolls or astroturfers. Your straw man is not the truth.
Developers will tell you they don't intend to develop such or such function, they won't tell you harshly to code it yourself, but will ask you gently if you can contribute the code. That's the behaviour I see on the ML.
and many times reported bugs that are annoying current users are put off or ignored, often because the development version is almost ready to go stable, and fixing the bug would be "a pain"
Another straw man, stop it already. Behaviours change greatly depending on size of the project and resources of developers. You try like mad to make FOSS devs look bad, putting them all in the same bag.
And then you add a mix of false facts, false consequences,
You're an obvious troll too, sentences like "people try it and often run right back to Windows" are obvious examples of trolling.
I've used Linux since about 1995, and I still can't stand all the -bullshit- that's necessary to get hardware working
That's because you're an astroturfer too. I knew Linux 3 years after you, and I know perfectly well why some hardware don't work on Linux, and sure enough, it's not because of buggy FOSS.
I last used Linux as a workstation back in 2000, and a few months ago I found not much had changed
That's because you're a troll.
The progress has been amazing since 2000 (Gnome 2, KDE 3, kernel 2.6,
I dropped an Ubuntu 5.10 CD into my athlon workstation which has a Geforce3 card in it, and a 17" Viewsonic monitor.
And during all this time, you never realised
- How advanced the desktop was compared to 2000
- That you had a menu option to send your hardware config and what went wrong to Ubuntu ?
So of course, you did not contribute anything.
I then tried to figure out how to change my screen saver. It wasn't in the Gnome menus- I finally found it under a "debian" menu elsewhere. Apparently my system has at least two "system settings" menus. What the...
Now you mistake Ubuntu choices with buggy software
There are some truly brilliant, talented people working on linux and open-source. Unfortuntely, they're bogged down in nearly useless work, or busy infighting
I think you should leave 2000 behind. Freedesktop is an evidence that what you say is false.
My favorite time-sinks are the incredibly obscure security holes that are so impractical nobody could ever exploit them
Now you assert that you are either a MS shill, a moron or both.
Ask yourself this: what does Linux do better today compared with in 2000, almost 6 years ago? I'm not talking about crap like antialiased text- I mean things that actually MATTER to users...
- Hardware compatibility
- One of the best i18n platform
- Lots of powerful tools available (all I actually need) that where not so good in 2000
- Office
- System efficience
- Live systems
- Multimedia
I forgot a lot, but I think it will be sufficient to debunk your stupid question.
Ask yourself this as well: when was the last time an open-source project you help out with surveyed its users to find out what was most important to THEM?
This week on gnome-desktop.org, there was at least one story on Slashdot too about that. Now go back to other astrotur
I can think of very few systems that have been around as long as DOS/Windows and have better backwards compatibility. I can think of only one Windows program that runs on an earlier version but not XP
Well, you can think, that's good. If you could think right, it would be better.
I can show you lots of programs that ran on Win9x and don't work in WinXP (my TV card capture program and its codecs are one of them).
Or that work on XP, but not as intended, but I supposed that counts as "works" for you (VirtualDub capture is one of these programs).
Look no further than Windows XP SP2.
Your experience and your thinking is clearly not representative of the majority.
I can -- and have -- set up, to a functional, networked state, all of the systems above, and can troubleshoot them when things go wrong, given a couple books, google, and a few days
:
Strangely enough, what you describe below just shows the contrary to what you say here.
However, Linux is by no means a better solution, at least for me
Two problems start appearing here
- You equate Fedora Core 4 with Linux
- As it shows below, you did not look at which distro was right given your hardware
Bottom line is, I had MUCH more frustration getting all of this to work under Fedora Core 4, and spent about 10 times more time than I did setting up Windows
Obviously, especially under Fedora Core adn with all these special hardwares.
I decided to say, "Screw this," and reinstalled Windows again
I would never have wiped out Windows, especially since you're not compelled to do that when installing Linux.
As to your set up problems with Linux, I'm sure they are genuine.
But I don't understand why you say that your example is a good example of why Linux is not a good solution for you. You always used Windows at home, and bought hardware adequate for your environment.
If you had used Linux (like I did), you would have done the same, and perhaps would not have bought the same hardware, but only hardware you know works well in Linux.
All those hardware whose company won't support on Linux, if they work, that's not because of magic, but because of people dedicated to make them work, at least for them.
Bringing Linux in the middle of all this hardware, it's not surprising some of it doesn't work.
Then you speak of GTKPod crashing (you had to find an app crashing, going with a beta was a good bet), get emotional about OOo and Thunderbird, are forced to say sth good about Firefox, try to say all kind of bad things about MPlayer and what you think is standard behaviour for audio on a Gnome desktop, to finish with stupidity about you updating your kernel and breaking your binary drivers, because of course, you tested all of that on a downloaded distro, which is for experienced linux users.
Of course, you would not test a distribution aimed at you, which means a commercial desktop distro.
Given your level of understanding of Linux, how can you say it's not better for you when trying a test distro for RedHat ?
Your rant starting well, to finish in a zealot flame fest.
And yes, I know, the Linux zealots will gasp with outrage and say, "It's not OUR fault that Linux doesn't support your hardware, you have hardware that's no good / unsupported / unreliable!"
You go in zealotry again. What was the purpose of this sentence of yours ?
And I'll simply respond with this: If that's the most substantive thing you can say to someone who spent 2 months giving Fedora Core 4 a "fair shake", go f*** yourself
Ah, that was the purpose : a straw man to go in a flame fest with zealots. Sad really.
My computer is a tool -- for communication, for productivity, for enjoying my spare time, or doing a bit of learning... my computer is NOT a statement of political philosophy
Me neither. Your rhetoric is not efficient. My computers and hardware just adapted to my needs, not the other way around, like for you.
If I have to sacrifice that much of my time, enjoyment, and ability to communicate with my computer in order to make some noble statement about freedom and choice
Your (our) problem starts as soon as you say that freedom and choice are just noble statements.
Some people died for those you know, I don't think they wanted to. And you talk about sacrifice ?
I told you your rhetoric is not efficient. At least, try not to look high on those that strive to be free.
They are no less respectable than you, try to show these people some respect.
Because you can't do it, does not mean others are moron.
I just can't understand why people can't seem to see that Mi
Your experience is not the be all end all of OS use.
My experience is different from yours.
yes, back in 2001 I had Windows XP blue screen on install, because of the driver for my Adaptec SCSI card, a driver certified and included in Windows XP. It was in the knowledge base, I think it was http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314063/ , but I'm not sure, as I never found the problem from the search option of MS knowledge basde, but from Google.
I haven't seen lots of blue screen since then, mostly for 2 reasons :
- Windows will lock instead of displaying a BSOD (so it's worse than before, you can't even search the web for some of the numbers the BSOD gave you)
- I'm exclusively using Linux at home since Jan. 2001
But I've seen another BSOD in 2003 on XP, when my sound card died (one of the first SB Live !). When I installed Linux to investigate, it worked flawlessly, except with no sound, and the log said the sound card had a problem. So I don't understand why Windows BSOD when Linux could report the problem and tag along. Of course, it was a hardware problem like you said.
So you have not seen BSOD, but that does not mean it's true for everyone, or that Win XP is robust.
i hate to tell you this, but 99.9% of computer users want pointy clicky stuff in some form
I hate to tell you this, but no, they don't !!
They have a job to do, which means data to deal with. Except for people doing games all day long, I don't see how they would want or use pointy clicky stuff all day.
There's a reason you can't be as productive without keyboard as without mouse.
Each time I see this nonsense written, I shake my head in disbelief.
they do not want to undestand how computers work, and they never will
They don't have to. But they at least have to learn how to use a keyboard. Oh wait, they already do.
Most of most people's work in computing is done with the keyboard, not the mouse, and it does not imply knowing how the computer works.
and why should they learn any of this crap?
But you are the one saying they have to. Nobody else than you ! So answer your own stupid question.
for 99.9% of the population, computers are or will soon be appliances that you turn on, play games, read your email, browse the web, and then turn them off
You are plain wrong. In a work environment, your "computer" has no value. You thought "entertainment" and entirely forgot "work". What you describe already exist btw.
99.9% of the people don't want to learn this stuff either. they have their families and other outside interests and other interesting things that they would rather spend them time on.
But you know, some people actually do work with computers, and they have to learn these things, as everybody needs to learn his job. And they need the job to have the money to go on spending their time on what you cited.
don't be a tech snob
Don't be an entertainment fool. We are not all like you, playgin all day long, some of us have to work with computers, you know.
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
That would be you then.
Why the anger ?
You proposed the iBook for the primary goal, but your choice was destroyed by the 3rd goal, that must be why.
You proposed an EyeTV for second goal, which is already one hardware too much compared to the solution the guy came with. It's also a lot more expensive solution overall (especially since you must buy 4 of each hardware), destroying the 3rd goal again.
What's worse, is that the EyeTV sure enough can't play everything MPlayer does (we're talking fansubs here). Still worse, with all your expensive hardware, you still can not provide all the functionality the guy had, like touchscreen. The Mac Mini is not a solution either, and sure enough is harder to configure with the software needed. And it's more expensive too.
I did not see anything better in what you proposed, and did not see anything easier too.
Can anyone come up with a valid, sensical reason?
As soon as you come with a valid, sensible question.
Considering the entirety of the anime industry is suffering from reduced sales, why is it that a method that is effectively illegal being promoted while the companies that produced this stuff, and legally license it, get the shaft?
There lies the problem : your assumptions and hatred.
I'll believe your word that anime industry is suffering from reduced sales, even though I know two thing :
- This has nothing to do with conventions, which in my experience, are more like promotional fests than anything (these are not copy parties)
- State of anime industry was far worse some years ago, especially outside of Japan
The method described here is not illegal either. Perhaps the purpose is, you don't actually know, I don't either, but you're eager to say it is illegal, without knowing if the convention got authorization to play the anime.
We in France have conventions too, and most of them get free authorizations to play anime, we even get masters, so I guess in the USA, you can too.
I don't understand either why you say people that licensed the anime got the shaft.
You don't even know if the fansubs where TV broadcasts or not !!
So you assume a lot to disparage the method. I can only associate such behaviour with hatred on your part.
I may be wrong, just like you.
Perhaps what impressed you was the "3 days worth of anime", which actually is not a lot for a convention.