However, if you're buying a PC preloaded with Windows, you are almost certain to find SP2 already installed. SP2 fixes a raft of security holes, turns on automatic updates, and, as a bonus, turns on the firewall that was (by default) off on XP RTM and XP SP1.
SP2 is still vulnerable, and surely is not enough. The firewall is not enough either.
Given that, your fears of "unpatched" boxes being loaded today seems a bit of an exaggeration.
It's not. Having Windows XP SP2 does not mean you are fully patched.
The biggest security threat these days is users opening worm-laden attachments, despite mountains of FAQ's, instructions, README.TXT, co-worker horror stories, and other forms of documentation, all warning of the dire implications of opening up that oh-so-inviting attachment claiming to have pictures of Paris Hilton's hoo-ha.
This is just not true. These email on other OS do not have any security impact, so you are wrong on this.
The biggest threat to security these days isn't in the OS anymore, it's mounted between the keyboard and the chair.
Still the same disrespect for the user. And you are totally wrong on the matter. The culprit is still the OS. In an OS that is well designed, opening any attachments does not pose any security threat, even if they are executable binaries, as no email reader on these OS can execute anything in an email. You are one MS shill to put the blame on innocent users, when the OS is at fault. I'm sure you are of those that then assure that Windows is easy to use with a straight face.
In this respect, Linux (or any *nix for that matter) can be considered more secure than Windows, but only until a competent administrator restricts local users to non-admin-equivalent accounts.
BS, it won't make any difference. IIRC Outlook or OE will still work in privileged mode.
Then things rapidly return to something amazingly close to equality.
To this day, it is still wishful thinking.
The corollary would be to give root-level privileges to common users and see how long the vaunted *nix security model holds up. Hint: it isn't nearly as long as we'd like. You're just one shell-script attachment away from disaster when a user gets an email instructing them to save the attachment off, chmod +x it, and execute it, not knowing it contains the ever-useful "rm -rf" command inside.
This is one very stupid example. So you compare a mail like this, where there is NO incentive to do anything, to a mail where the attachment claims to be pictures of Paris Hilton's hoo-ha ? You compare one click to a message that actually give you work to do ? And you say people will be as eager to do all this work ? Here in the real world, the fact is that the social engineering trick is far from being effective on anything but Windows, which is really badly designed, allowing a thing as stupid as INFECTING THE SYSTEM WITH ONE CLICK, FROM AN UNTRUSTED SOURCE. When on Linux for example, everything is one click away too, EXCEPT executing things. So contrary to your flawed example, you are not just one shell script away from disaster, you are at least 3 tedious actions away from disaster. Worse, your example is even more flawed, when no virus writer has any incentive to do these things. Because what you describe is not a virus nor a worm, as the first people to receive it will not spread anything, just destroy its data. It makes no sense really. Let's say it spread anyway, if such things were the norm, most Windows boxes would be wiped out right now.
You don't believe that a user would actually do something so stupid as to execute commands outlined in an email body? What have you been smoking lately...of course they would.
Of course they won't. Stupid people like that won't even find how to launch the terminal, what have you been smoking lately ?
If *nix ever became as ubiquitous as Windows is now, it would assuredly happen, I'll set my watch and warrant on it.
And I already explained why it won't happen. You didn't explained anything, and just try to scare people, with BS fortunately. True MS shill.
I said that if you want to get Windows users to migrate to Linux
That's the problem, "we" don't. I say "we", because you want absolutely for the Linux community to be one entity with only one direction, when it's not. What "we" want is more users, to have weight when asking for drivers. That does not necessarily means migrating users from Windows.
We decided it was worth more to the user to give them a pop-up free browser than to try to train them to use Ctrl+L to focus the addressbar
Well, that's cool, now what was the point ? I didn't even know Alt+D was used to focus the addressbar in IE and Firefox.
For linux to be successful in converting Windows users, it is going to have to make smart decisions about these kinds of issues
Still the same flaws. Linux is not destined to convert Windows users. Linux is not one entity that make "smart decisions" about unknown issues. Surely, what Firefox integrate with is not a Linux issue, you didn't give any example. Firefox don't even integrate into a Gnome of KDE desktop, it is worse to use than any other browser (galeon, epiphany, Konqueror) on these desktops.
I can see approximately zero value in reversing the OK and Cancel buttons
What is the norm ? Windows ? Were is the reversing ? Perhaps Firefox has "OK/Cancel" buttons, but on the browsers I talked about, there are no such things : there are only "actions", and OK is not one, so you will not see it. You just showed that Firefox was not integrated with KDE or Gnome, which just tells me it is not a smart decision for users of such DEs.
I can see it being a very uncomfortable re-learning curve with a lot of pain when the user gets it wrong out of habit
Ask MacOS X users this question. People talk about simplicity of this OS, when it is so different. Like you said "Pick your battles" : you are wrong, or all the people saying MacOS X is so user-friendly and simpel are wrong. Anyway, as none of my users never had a problem with this, I call BS on this "issue". My wife, using Excel extensively at work, never had a problem with gnumeric (even though she uses a KDE desktop) and prefer it to any spreadsheet on Linux, even to OOo. And Gnumeric has no OK buttons, these are "Save", "Print", "Accept",... buttons, and she hever had any problem with that.
The lot of toolkit is a "problem" on every OS : Windows, MacOS X and others. But it would destroy your troll to admit it.
We refer to each OS by its name, without adding OS. Nobody says Windows OS, though they should, because windows have nothing to do with OS.
Anyway, if a Ubuntu users wants to install KOffice, he uses the package installer, which does and downloads everything automatically for him, without having to know anything more than KUbuntu installation guide or KOffice site tells them to do. Every commercial distribution does the same btw, so your example is completely wrong.
No user ever complained to me about "button orders", and I still wonder what crack the man that first introduced that on/. was smoking. No ordinary user I know was ever upset by button order !!!
Nor Windows nor MacOS X are more consistent than the two major DE on Linux. They all have several toolkits, but it would destroy your troll to admit it. This is not a problem now, it won't be one later, and it surely is not what is holding Linux desktop back (if sth is holding it back).
You and the GP are still have not snapped out of this troll ? There is no gnome app with "cancel/ok", "no/yes". DO you hear what I'm telling you ? So all your petty troll is based on nothing actually. Want to save ? You will get "cancel/save" at worst. This is well known fact for any Gnome user, but you MS shills would not know that. The visual cue is so much enough, that my users never realised that galeon, a near Gnome app, was not a KDE app.
And citing Mozilla and Firefox, which are NOT Gnome apps, as examples, just shows how much your argument is flawed.
It just shows another thing. In Gnome apps, the equivalent of "canceling" is always a "X", sometimes red, sometimes black, but always. So you never search or even read anything. Actually, Escape, by default, always activate this option. Your flawed argument implies that Windows still has not solved this ?!!
BTW, you say you installed 'tons' of applications on Ubuntu, which just invalidate a lot of people saying installing apps on Linux is hard.
A lot of freeware on Windows do not install any shortcut anywhere, some even come in ZIP files with no installer. Now, being the perfect astroturfer, you carefully chose to talk about shareware on Windows, because shareware authors HAVE to do such basic things to have a chance to get money. Of course, comparing sharewares to a development version of Firefox, which is no shareware, is stupid and biased, but you surely thought you would get away with it.
Points 3 and 4 are, well, amazing, given the fact that there IS a way to do that. It is to use smeg, the unofficial gnome menu editor. But that destroys your argument, shows you did not research anything before spewing nonsense, like every astroturfers bashing Linux desktop. Of course, smeg just edits the desktop file, which is no shortcut like in Windows, but a much more powerful thing.
The rest is the usual troll of uninformed Windows shill that try to find flaws in Linux, but never manage to find the right ones. Some years ago, these "all is greener on Windows" post made me switch back to Windows, because, well, I must have been deluded. Less than one day after, I was always back on Linux, the Windows experience beeing unbearable and showing me all the hidden flaws in the "greener Windows" argument. Nowadays, the Linux desktop is so much more powerful, that even the "greener in Windows" posts are still pitiful when compared.
Linux-on-the-desktop isn't just too complicated for n00bs -- it's too complicated for reasonably sharp users, too. And that's the problem.
No, the problem is that you think you are a reasonnably sharp user, when in fact you are just more Windows formatted than Linux formatted.
I offer myself as an example. I am not the God of All Things Computing. But I've been tinkering with PCs since MS-DOS 3 days, I've used Windows, Macs, Linux and even CP/M for pete's sake.
OK, now me : I never used MS-DOS, I've used Amiga, HP-UX, AIX, Windows (95,98,2000,XP) and Linux.
Today my primary desktop at home runs Ubuntu Linux.
Mine runs my own Linux. I have Ubuntu on a laptop though. I decided to try Ubuntu... 2 months ago, after hearing about it for several months before that.
I'm comfortable compiling software from source tarballs and rooting through Google for HOWTOs and FAQs.
Me too. I'm also full Linux user since january 2001, and started trying Linux in january 1999.
Example. The other day I installed the new Deer Park preview of Firefox.
And your example is already flawed, as no ordinary user would do such a thing. Hell, even I do not do that on my own Linux OS, I sure would not do that on the ubuntu laptop. But OK.
For some reason, its installer (bonus points to it for even having a graphical installer, btw) didn't add a shortcut for launching it to my GNOME panel. So I wanted to add one myself.
And now it's finished : the provider of the installer did not provide a shortcut for this software, which is not even consumer grade, and you then blame the Linux desktop for that ? Ah no, you take a well known fact that Gnome 2.10+ do not have an official menu editor yet to try to make others believe that you are right. That is the death of your argument that comes now...
Easy? Right? Bzzt.
On Windows, here's the steps for adding a new item to the Start menu:
1. Click Start menu button
2. Navigate to folder where you'd like to add shortcut
3. Right-click folder name
4. Select "New Shortcut"
5. Wizard launches that walks you through finding the program you want the shortcut to point to, and giving the shortcut a name.
I knew it. Now, here comes the death of your stupid argument: - The steps you described are so complicated, no ordinary user can do it, even I have difficulty with this. - The Windows way forces you to put a shortcut in the menu for a alpha-beta app that you will soon delete, so clutter your menu, is complicated to do (and you deliberately forgot some steps), and forces you to go through a wizard, which is tedious. - At the very least, you now need 2 clicks (probably 3) to access your new shortcut, or several delays to replace the clicks. - Me, not so sharp as you, but a real user of Linux, have TWO simple way to achieve MUCH BETTER than what you did : right-click the panel and "add a launcher" or right click the desktop and "add a launcher". - I'm then presented with a simple dialog, with two tabs (basic, advanced, you are on basic by default), with things like "name", "comment", "command". I have all the other standard dialogs to browse, to find an icon for my launcher,... - On the panel and on the desktop, my new shortcut has far more visibility. Hell, I can even put an emblem on it, to have more visual cues. For example, a danger emblem, for all developpement versions I will have to delete later.
So the reasonning is different, but you, the self called "sharp user", who supposedly used Linux, can not come with that in mind, when two better solutions came to mine. And you think Windows users put up with crap like yours, of putting shortcuts in menus, which need navigating a menu and several clicks ? And you feel your example shows problems with the Linux desktop ?
Why is it ok for linux to include everything but the kitchen sink (and beta drivers for that too), but microsoft is evil if it includes a web browser?
Back in the browser wars, MS would not include Netscape or other concurrent browsers in Windows. Linux does offer every serious competitor. Now, to answer your question, which is a carefully crafted one : MS is evil because it does not include "a" web browser, it includes ITS web browser ONLY. Asking the question correctly, you can start to understand, but I know MS brain washing is very efficient.
Shells will compete with Monad ? You MS zealots are amazing. So now, shells, like bash, which are extremely powerful, extensively used and improved, cross-platform will compete with something that is not even in stable state yet ? Compete with sth that is not even cross-platform ? Compete with sth that does the same mistakes as csh ?
If you want a universal config GUI for Linux and its servers, there is webmin. Distros don't actually need to overload anything in Apache server config files, Apache already interoperates pretty well with anything, there is a plugin API available for that. Now, could you please have an interesting topic ?
KDE would, given the chance. It could take a while for the KPart to be officially accepted, but thats par for the course.
I don't know, the config file of Apache is easier to understand than any GUI I have seen. Actually, I still haven't seen sth easier and safer than a config file to configure a server.
For doing small office things I would. Snob. In fact, anyone with a PC on their desk should be able to 'publish' web pages to the rest of their LAN as long as a sysadmin hasn't specifically disabled such services.
Even though everyone with a PC is not a sysadmin... You did not understand one thing about security, specially in Windows environment.
You don't buy the "but it's too slow argument", OK, that's your right, and it is not surprising when your vision of programming is so narrow. We are talking about a low level LIBRARY here. Which means reentrant, placement independant code, efficiency, API accessible easily to any language and compiler. I think all of this is still very difficult to do right in other languages than C. It is already very difficult to do in C++. Anyway, your language without buffer overflows would not use pointer arithmetic, so would create a zlib a lot slower than the one we now, even if you optimise your high level language to the max. When you see that what takes time are basic lines of your language, you are toast.
Which illustrates well why we don't need ignorant people like you, because these tools already exists at least for Gnome, KDE and the command line, with applets in toolbars allowing you to switch resolution and refresh rate on the fly, with the desktops resizing of course. Of course, XFree automatically query your monitor through your graphic card for acceptable resolutions and refresh rates, and do that since several years. And you dare explain that you would concentrate on a thing that is already implemented and working well ? It just shows your experience of Linux is outdated, which is why we don't need clever people like you to help Linux go further.
> I'd quite like to see on-the-fly color depth changes though I understand that's far more difficult than resolution changes.
Yes, so difficult, no operating system has ever managed to do this correctly!
Oh wait, they all do, except for X. And they have been doing it for over ten years.
Searching a problem where there isn't any, right ? You are trying to tell us this is a flaw, whereas the color depth change was implemented because of flaws in apps ? FYI, X is not an OS. X works on nearly every OS, even Windows, but still does can not do on the fly color depth change. That is a limitation of its design, but not a flaw. Only badly behaving apps or apps that use workaround to be more efficient need color depth change : very old X apps made to work on very old video cards, games running in 16 bpp,... In our time, people even watch movies on their monitor, and 32 bpp (24 bpp actually) is the lowest color depth you could use for that. In our time, people are talking of translucency (meaning you are forced to use 32 bpp). But there are still trolls like you that claim that it is a flaw to not be able to change color depth on the fly, even though I'm sure most of them do not change resolution on the fly. For X, there are solutions for all the misbehaving apps (SDL for 16 bpp games for example). But sth I'm sure will happen : as soon as LongHorn is out and you can't switch color depth without losing all the eye candy, these trolls will quietly stop.
I think developers would rather fix real problems, rather than your stupid trollish problem. Are you telling me most users want to allow remote X terminal logins ? Are you insane or what ?
Devs won't cure your stupidity you know. Saying that there are problems in Linux because you don't know how to configure mdkkdm is STUPID. Because it is a Mandriva product, and because it has a GUI to configure it, perhaps even a man page. To boot, your problem has nothing to do with "lack of standardization of filesystem layout", software installation or software configuration.
I'm not even a seasoned veterans, but I found without problem how to change mdkkdm to gdm in Mandriva, and then launch the GUI app to modify the settings. I even know how to use the GUI package tool to find which package mdkkdm belongs to, and then find the files. 10 seconds of googling even tells me that mdkkdm uses the same config files than kdm, destroying you argument even further...
Trolls like you are amazing because they manage to contradict themselves in one post. Things like: Other than "no viruses (yet)" and "it's free-(ish)", there's nothing. And both of those are easily answered in favor of Windows right now and If Linux was truly a better experience, people would flock to it
So for you, having to manage viruses is a better experience ? FYI, common users can't manage viruses. Surely Linux is freer than Windows too.
The worst is that you didn't even give a clue or a basis as to why what you say is true. Surely Windows is not "good enough" for everyone involved. You don't seem to know what a hotline is (there are plenty for unsatisfied Windows users) and you don't seem to know a lot of Windows PC lie unused, because the people who wanted to use them have no geek around them, to help them repair Windows. If Linux came pre-loaded on computers, then people would have a choice, and could flock to it. As long as they have to install it, I fail to see how they could flock to Linux. Exposure is a word you fail to understand.
Trolls like you modded +5 Insightful is scaring really !! But I realise your comment applies to Windows too.
What I don't understand, is how someone can associate a free online support service with a failure or blaming users. It is there to help them on the contrary.
I have faith they'll eventually catch up. But not unless people honestly admit there are flaws and they need to be rectified
And I'm tired of hearing this garbage. Flaws in the Linux world are already identified, and this is not one. What you describe is called : "no vendor support", it is identified since a long time ago, is not a flaw of Linux but a flaw of the vendor, and it is being addressed. But people like you think FOSS drivers can come faster than the manufacturer of the soundcard. At least, in the FOSS world, we are realistic.
I prefer not even talk about the rest of your post, because talking about intall procedure under Gentoo to describe driver installation in Linux is just insane. Driver installation under Mandriva puts a very different light on Linux, but you can't possibly know that. Worse, you talk about a problem that has been addressed.
Re:Which distros can resize partitions?
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Test Driving Linux
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· Score: 1
Mandrake (now Mandriva) does that since a long time ago, and Mandrake Move (which is discussed here) does it too, through an option that comes like "let me shrink your Windows and install Linux in the free space"
That being said, WHAT'S TAKING SO DAMN LONG?! This stuff was figured out 10+ years ago, and pieces of it were even included in BeOS
I have VERY HIGH doubts that this thing is figured out. Rather, I have the feeling that this is NOT figuret at all. These query things are scarry. I see so much problems if this thing replaces folders (which means you have no folder anymore), that it is overwhelming: - How do you set a static path to a file, when several have the same name ? Live queries are moving targets. Unique IDs are not enough IMHO. - Interoperability between systems become a nightmare - How do you manage a trashcan ? More importantly, how do you manage the trashcan without confusing the user ? - Most normal users have BIG problems understanding how to make good queries in Google, but all of this suppose they will become proficient at making queries, and I have serious doubts about that - How do you manage your pile of queries, once you have tens of them ? (I guess you don't, what a horrible mess) - Where do you save a document ? I mean, you save it, you don't know where, but how do you get it back ? For example, you save it with Word 2003. Now you want to use Word 2005, or, say OOo. How do you do that ?
Well, I could manage this, and I think most computer scientists could, but Joe user ? I highly doubt it, even if they are not idiots. Better test this on some willing users before removing folders. I am unable to see how it can work without folders, to the point that it is frightening. Queries are a big plus I guess, for power users, but to replace folders is foolish for now IMHO.
This is so illogical, and yet you get a Interesting mod ? I wonder if people use their brain these days. Now I explain the completely illogical thing : you just said that you compare a HISTORY to a TEXT FILE.
If you make an edit in a shell, the cursor DOESN'T magically fly down to the bottom either. But when you press Enter in a shell, it EXECUTES the command, and the command is ADDED to the HISTORY, which is the CORRECT behaviour, if I understand what a history is. In a text file, the same operation (pressing Enter) puts you at another line. So the effect is not the same, but you find a connection to the cursor ?
With your example, it shows only these things to me: - Windows "shell" history is not a history - Windows "shell" is seriously broken, as it is not at all intuitive : if you go back to the 10th command you typed, how are you supposed to remember what the 9th and 11th command were ? I can remember I typed some commands, say, less than 5 commands before, I can't remember that it was between some others
This MS brainwashing is amazing, next thing, you will try to make us believe that multi-selection copy in Windows coming out in reverse order is intuitive.
There are a surprisingly large contingent of people who like to disparage anyone who comes to prefer an OS other than MS Windows (you included of course). They recognised that these people were right before, but they admit it only 5-10 years after, so that everybody forget they were naysayers before, so that they don't sound too ridiculous, and try keeping some kind of credibility. But amazingly enough, they are STILL naysayers now.
Yes, they put nonsense like MS accomplished a miracle with 2000/XP. Well, unfortunately for them, 2000/XP, though better than Win 9x, are still far from reality. XP still does not run and run, 2000 does not either. They slowly come to a halt, XP faster than 2000. These OS can run and run, if you put one service only on them, and tweak them for two plain days until they ressemble nothing you could work with, which is a process I call tedious, not a "miracle". I never saw one of these OS run and run, but I suppose it is acheivable. Compared to a Linux that run and run without any tweak, there is still a chasm between the two OS.
Then, these MS shills come say that, I cite : "increased functionality almost always comes at the price of bloat". When KDE, despite being stuffed with features at every new version, becomes more and more fast with each release. I suppose this is due to wishfull thinking from people that still can't understand that a bunch of geeks can do better than a multi billion dollars company... Meanwhile, Linux geeks continue to stuff features still unheard of in MS Windows world, though some of them where already copied from Linux in WinXP.
So, these MS shills think that Windows has attained speed and stability of Linux : better let them think that, so they can't fight back efficiently. Of course, meanwhile, MS gave away trying to picture itself faster and more stable than Linux in their ad campaigns : they know they sound ridiculous. To be exact, they still try sometimes, comparing themselves with old versions of Linux, as even when degrading newer versions of Linux, they still come last. With MS shills, it has come to a point where they firmly believe that BSOD does not exist anymore in WinXP or later !!! They live in complete denial. And they try to picture themselves as "passionate believer in F/OSS". Of course, their words show the contrary : most of the time, they have no knowledge of F/OSS world. But they need to say that they are part of the community, to be credible when they say : "aiming to improve Linux to the state where it once again has many advantages over Windows". Amazing !
But the one thing we all Linux (or even Unix) guys saw coming is truely pitiful when you think about it : these MS shills will argue tooth and nail that things that do not exist in MS Windows are bad or not user-friendly or not needed. For example, the command line. But AS SOON AS MS release it (or vaporwares it) : OMG it's better than anything else, it will *kill* every similar other tool.
Now, one thing I wonder : how MSH will come superior to bash, when bash is cross-platform, and msh is not ? It destroys one of the most important features of shells...
The parent was undoubtedly referring to the pitiful state of printer support Linux at the time of the Windows 2000 launch in March 2000. At launch, Win2k had support for thousands of printers inbox. But with Linux, unless you had a fairly standard postscript or PCL4/5 compatible printer, printing was usually not even an option except in text mode.
Of course you are completely off-base on this one. CUPS was already very good (the thing you call Linux) already, and had thousands of drivers already. BUT, all these drivers were commercial (Cups Pro or sth). So there's a good chance you are wrong, but at least, tell the truth : the parent could have had support for its printer, but did not want to pay for it, as it was free on Windows. I agree with that, but stretching it to what you say is pitiful and going to far.
My guess is it probably took about 4 years for the parent's printer to receive support. Although a large number of inkjet printers have been added via either CUPS raster drivers or GIMP-print, it has been a slow and arduous process, and many are still unsupported.
And, as always, this has nothing to do with inability of Linux to support the printers, but is due to the fact that the manufacturer does all it can to NOT support Linux.
I'd say the 4 year figure may be about accurate.
And I find it pretty amazing that trolls manage to assert sth like that, when they don't even know the problematic printer. But yeah, your guess should be right. Like my guess that this is a fake story without any base, made to disparage Linux.
Seeing how something is done does not get you any understanding on *why* it was done.
Of course not. But then, LFS explains to you why it was done. LFS is a book made for that. Show me another distro that explains the importance of the "build toolchain", and how to assure its integrity. I don't know one, except LFS, and other books based on it (like DIY Linux). Show me other distros that explain how to compile things like glibc, how the environment must be before, and why.
Actually, LFS is pretty useful to understand how Linux works. I don't know such books on other distro BTW. You said they exist, at least point one of them. God, the toolchain integrity thing was unknown to me until LFS introduced it. I never knew I could replace my init in other distros. And I think that is because I can't without suffering from lots of hassle. I tried learning things with other distros (mostly Red Hat). I was burned very bad by the process : distros which are not source based are nearly impossible to maintain if you mix tarball software with them. I did not try with Gentoo or Sorcerer, but I guess the problem is the same. But it just shows me *every* technique I ue to learn Linux does not actually work in distros.
And if you are smart enough, way before you arrive at BLFS, you will understand the need for package management (paco ?) AND automated install (nALFS ?).
Strangely enough, you had problem keeping your system working. My internet frontend is a P75 200@133 MHz. I think you will understand why I do not upgrade it often (it takes 2+ days to compile the linux kernel, with everything else running of course). Actually, except for the kernel (when it becomes really dangerous not to upgrade) and iptables, I do not upgrade most things on it (like the mail gateway). And it keeps running for months, until I decide keeping a kernel is too dangerous.
My main workstation, which all the family uses (since 2001) with my LFS based OS, is more powerful and up to date than any distro, even gentoo, and I have more power over it. You want example ? Try installing KDE with gcc 4.0 (4.0.1 cvs for it not to bork KDE), or sabbu (for fansubbing) or a recent GCompris (6.5.3 ?) for my daughter on Gentoo (and make GCompris work of course, with the latest pygtk), or simpleinit-msb replace old sysvinit (erasing all complaints of parallel boot and hard to maintain boot scripts). Now perhaps you start to understand why it is more powerful than even Gentoo for me, now that I learned so much with LFS.
Keeping my OS up to date is no effort (thanks FreshMeat and your automated subscribed notices), getting every FLOSS available to work is no problem. Sure, when I want a new program, I have to create a new XML file for nALFS (I have a template). I have no time to waste nowadays, so, if the program is so tedious it does not work in 5 minutes, I scrap it (or scrap the upgrade). I really thank LFS for this powerful OS it allowed me to make.
Stupid argument from a clueless person. FYI I use a LFS based OS since 2001, and I'm sure it is more up to date than any of your distros. FYI, there is a site called FreshMeat, where people keeps track of software changes for you. Then, you can subscribe for it to send you notices when a package is updated. That is what I use. I never overlooked any packages thanks to that site. I even let some Apache versions slip, because I knew that the new version did not gave me anything. And thanks to my LFS system, I KNOW every server I installed !! And even though I use some insecure packages on my Apache server, I still have to get owned... Remember, I still use the same system since 2001, it got through 3 big (dangerous) migrations (linux 2.6, udev, unicode), and is still there, and bleeding edge (except for mono), with package management and automated install, and at most 1 hour of install by month where it needs my interaction (updating some version numbers, sometimes one patch).
You are right about the learning bit, but could not be more wrong about the time using the system. I have a LFS based distro since 2001. My family and I uses it every day since january 2001, when I switched every one to my Linux OS. It is entirely automated (with nALFS, in which I contributed in the beginning) and with package management (with paco, in which I contributed too). The most time consuming parts where at start, when I had to create all my custom XML files for apps I wanted on my OS (1200+ files). Nowadays, the time consuming parts were big migrations : kernel 2.4 -> 2.6, devfs -> udev/hotplug/hal/dbus. Sometimes, when a new app appears, I have to create a new XML file, I take my termplate, modify it a bit, integrate it in nALFS, and then I launch the install. The time consuming part (say, 2 minutes) is actually reading the README, and the INSTALL file, when it is not generic, and finally reading the configure options.
For example, when a new KDE is out, I have it on my system one day after the release, with no more hassle than changing the version numbers in a file, launching nALFS, and then launching install of "KDE->base". It takes 2 minutes to do all that, then the automated installs compiles everything. Some smart people would then say : "yes but I can do that with Gentoo !". Not so fast, you're wrong. I actually compiled my KDEs with gcc 4, which you can't do without much hassle in Gentoo. And it works without problem, because even though gcc 4.0.1 is not out, the CVS versions of it are out. All I had to do to eliminate gcc 4.0.0 bugs, was to change the version in my files to a CVS version, and then launch gcc install too.
You do not need to track down any security bug actually, especially because, once you have a system like mine, it seems you becomes smarter. I don't know if this is true, but, when I hear people say that you have to track security patches, I can only shake my head. Actually, all FLOSS software launch new versions of their software when they have corrected enough bugs, or added enough functionality, and that includes security bugs. Now, I'm subscribed to one of the most useful site of information for FLOSS on the net : Freshmeat. And Freshmeat has a feature that let's you register programs, and send you a notice when they are updated. Then, any decent OSS mail client (evolution, kmail) allows you to organize all your freshmeat notices in a directory. And so, I'm always aware of what's going on, of what software needs updating. And when I choose too (sometimes once every 3 months or worse), I updates all my programs or the most important ones. It doesn't take me more than 1 hour a month. You could say it is a lot, but that is what I was taking (at least) EVERY 2 DAYS (when not every day) on my Windows box. When I see all the people whining on/. about how they can't get this or that working, whereas on my OS, it was so simple, I'm always impressed at how powerful this OS is. Idem when I still see people whining about parallelised boot, simpler boot scripts (well, I have this since 2001 !!!), or dependancy hell (I never got one, that's just impossible with my system I think).
Well, this is to say that really, this system is not the hassle it seems to be (except when you have to create your own XML files). I even have a completely automated x86 boot CD creation for my OS (allowing me to install it on anything from P75 200@133 to bi-AMD 2200+ and more). All that thanks to LFS and associated projects which taught me nearly everything.
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However, if you're buying a PC preloaded with Windows, you are almost certain to find SP2 already installed. SP2 fixes a raft of security holes, turns on automatic updates, and, as a bonus, turns on the firewall that was (by default) off on XP RTM and XP SP1.
SP2 is still vulnerable, and surely is not enough. The firewall is not enough either.
Given that, your fears of "unpatched" boxes being loaded today seems a bit of an exaggeration.
It's not. Having Windows XP SP2 does not mean you are fully patched.
The biggest security threat these days is users opening worm-laden attachments, despite mountains of FAQ's, instructions, README.TXT, co-worker horror stories, and other forms of documentation, all warning of the dire implications of opening up that oh-so-inviting attachment claiming to have pictures of Paris Hilton's hoo-ha.
This is just not true. These email on other OS do not have any security impact, so you are wrong on this.
The biggest threat to security these days isn't in the OS anymore, it's mounted between the keyboard and the chair.
Still the same disrespect for the user. And you are totally wrong on the matter. The culprit is still the OS.
In an OS that is well designed, opening any attachments does not pose any security threat, even if they are executable binaries, as no email reader on these OS can execute anything in an email.
You are one MS shill to put the blame on innocent users, when the OS is at fault. I'm sure you are of those that then assure that Windows is easy to use with a straight face.
In this respect, Linux (or any *nix for that matter) can be considered more secure than Windows, but only until a competent administrator restricts local users to non-admin-equivalent accounts.
BS, it won't make any difference. IIRC Outlook or OE will still work in privileged mode.
Then things rapidly return to something amazingly close to equality.
To this day, it is still wishful thinking.
The corollary would be to give root-level privileges to common users and see how long the vaunted *nix security model holds up. Hint: it isn't nearly as long as we'd like. You're just one shell-script attachment away from disaster when a user gets an email instructing them to save the attachment off, chmod +x it, and execute it, not knowing it contains the ever-useful "rm -rf" command inside.
This is one very stupid example. So you compare a mail like this, where there is NO incentive to do anything, to a mail where the attachment claims to be pictures of Paris Hilton's hoo-ha ?
You compare one click to a message that actually give you work to do ?
And you say people will be as eager to do all this work ?
Here in the real world, the fact is that the social engineering trick is far from being effective on anything but Windows, which is really badly designed, allowing a thing as stupid as INFECTING THE SYSTEM WITH ONE CLICK, FROM AN UNTRUSTED SOURCE.
When on Linux for example, everything is one click away too, EXCEPT executing things.
So contrary to your flawed example, you are not just one shell script away from disaster, you are at least 3 tedious actions away from disaster.
Worse, your example is even more flawed, when no virus writer has any incentive to do these things.
Because what you describe is not a virus nor a worm, as the first people to receive it will not spread anything, just destroy its data. It makes no sense really. Let's say it spread anyway, if such things were the norm, most Windows boxes would be wiped out right now.
You don't believe that a user would actually do something so stupid as to execute commands outlined in an email body? What have you been smoking lately...of course they would.
Of course they won't. Stupid people like that won't even find how to launch the terminal, what have you been smoking lately ?
If *nix ever became as ubiquitous as Windows is now, it would assuredly happen, I'll set my watch and warrant on it.
And I already explained why it won't happen. You didn't explained anything, and just try to scare people, with BS fortunately. True MS shill.
I said that if you want to get Windows users to migrate to Linux
... buttons, and she hever had any problem with that.
That's the problem, "we" don't.
I say "we", because you want absolutely for the Linux community to be one entity with only one direction, when it's not.
What "we" want is more users, to have weight when asking for drivers. That does not necessarily means migrating users from Windows.
We decided it was worth more to the user to give them a pop-up free browser than to try to train them to use Ctrl+L to focus the addressbar
Well, that's cool, now what was the point ?
I didn't even know Alt+D was used to focus the addressbar in IE and Firefox.
For linux to be successful in converting Windows users, it is going to have to make smart decisions about these kinds of issues
Still the same flaws. Linux is not destined to convert Windows users. Linux is not one entity that make "smart decisions" about unknown issues. Surely, what Firefox integrate with is not a Linux issue, you didn't give any example.
Firefox don't even integrate into a Gnome of KDE desktop, it is worse to use than any other browser (galeon, epiphany, Konqueror) on these desktops.
I can see approximately zero value in reversing the OK and Cancel buttons
What is the norm ? Windows ?
Were is the reversing ? Perhaps Firefox has "OK/Cancel" buttons, but on the browsers I talked about, there are no such things : there are only "actions", and OK is not one, so you will not see it. You just showed that Firefox was not integrated with KDE or Gnome, which just tells me it is not a smart decision for users of such DEs.
I can see it being a very uncomfortable re-learning curve with a lot of pain when the user gets it wrong out of habit
Ask MacOS X users this question. People talk about simplicity of this OS, when it is so different. Like you said "Pick your battles" : you are wrong, or all the people saying MacOS X is so user-friendly and simpel are wrong.
Anyway, as none of my users never had a problem with this, I call BS on this "issue".
My wife, using Excel extensively at work, never had a problem with gnumeric (even though she uses a KDE desktop) and prefer it to any spreadsheet on Linux, even to OOo. And Gnumeric has no OK buttons, these are "Save", "Print", "Accept",
Of course, a lot of your troll is wrong.
/. was smoking. No ordinary user I know was ever upset by button order !!!
The lot of toolkit is a "problem" on every OS : Windows, MacOS X and others. But it would destroy your troll to admit it.
We refer to each OS by its name, without adding OS. Nobody says Windows OS, though they should, because windows have nothing to do with OS.
Anyway, if a Ubuntu users wants to install KOffice, he uses the package installer, which does and downloads everything automatically for him, without having to know anything more than KUbuntu installation guide or KOffice site tells them to do. Every commercial distribution does the same btw, so your example is completely wrong.
No user ever complained to me about "button orders", and I still wonder what crack the man that first introduced that on
Nor Windows nor MacOS X are more consistent than the two major DE on Linux. They all have several toolkits, but it would destroy your troll to admit it.
This is not a problem now, it won't be one later, and it surely is not what is holding Linux desktop back (if sth is holding it back).
You and the GP are still have not snapped out of this troll ?
There is no gnome app with "cancel/ok", "no/yes". DO you hear what I'm telling you ? So all your petty troll is based on nothing actually.
Want to save ? You will get "cancel/save" at worst. This is well known fact for any Gnome user, but you MS shills would not know that. The visual cue is so much enough, that my users never realised that galeon, a near Gnome app, was not a KDE app.
And citing Mozilla and Firefox, which are NOT Gnome apps, as examples, just shows how much your argument is flawed.
It just shows another thing. In Gnome apps, the equivalent of "canceling" is always a "X", sometimes red, sometimes black, but always.
So you never search or even read anything.
Actually, Escape, by default, always activate this option.
Your flawed argument implies that Windows still has not solved this ?!!
Wrong on all counts.
BTW, you say you installed 'tons' of applications on Ubuntu, which just invalidate a lot of people saying installing apps on Linux is hard.
A lot of freeware on Windows do not install any shortcut anywhere, some even come in ZIP files with no installer. Now, being the perfect astroturfer, you carefully chose to talk about shareware on Windows, because shareware authors HAVE to do such basic things to have a chance to get money. Of course, comparing sharewares to a development version of Firefox, which is no shareware, is stupid and biased, but you surely thought you would get away with it.
Points 3 and 4 are, well, amazing, given the fact that there IS a way to do that. It is to use smeg, the unofficial gnome menu editor. But that destroys your argument, shows you did not research anything before spewing nonsense, like every astroturfers bashing Linux desktop.
Of course, smeg just edits the desktop file, which is no shortcut like in Windows, but a much more powerful thing.
The rest is the usual troll of uninformed Windows shill that try to find flaws in Linux, but never manage to find the right ones.
Some years ago, these "all is greener on Windows" post made me switch back to Windows, because, well, I must have been deluded. Less than one day after, I was always back on Linux, the Windows experience beeing unbearable and showing me all the hidden flaws in the "greener Windows" argument. Nowadays, the Linux desktop is so much more powerful, that even the "greener in Windows" posts are still pitiful when compared.
Linux-on-the-desktop isn't just too complicated for n00bs -- it's too complicated for reasonably sharp users, too. And that's the problem.
... 2 months ago, after hearing about it for several months before that.
...
: ...
No, the problem is that you think you are a reasonnably sharp user, when in fact you are just more Windows formatted than Linux formatted.
I offer myself as an example. I am not the God of All Things Computing. But I've been tinkering with PCs since MS-DOS 3 days, I've used Windows, Macs, Linux and even CP/M for pete's sake.
OK, now me : I never used MS-DOS, I've used Amiga, HP-UX, AIX, Windows (95,98,2000,XP) and Linux.
Today my primary desktop at home runs Ubuntu Linux.
Mine runs my own Linux. I have Ubuntu on a laptop though. I decided to try Ubuntu
I'm comfortable compiling software from source tarballs and rooting through Google for HOWTOs and FAQs.
Me too. I'm also full Linux user since january 2001, and started trying Linux in january 1999.
Example. The other day I installed the new Deer Park preview of Firefox.
And your example is already flawed, as no ordinary user would do such a thing. Hell, even I do not do that on my own Linux OS, I sure would not do that on the ubuntu laptop. But OK.
For some reason, its installer (bonus points to it for even having a graphical installer, btw) didn't add a shortcut for launching it to my GNOME panel. So I wanted to add one myself.
And now it's finished : the provider of the installer did not provide a shortcut for this software, which is not even consumer grade, and you then blame the Linux desktop for that ?
Ah no, you take a well known fact that Gnome 2.10+ do not have an official menu editor yet to try to make others believe that you are right. That is the death of your argument that comes now
Easy? Right? Bzzt.
On Windows, here's the steps for adding a new item to the Start menu:
1. Click Start menu button
2. Navigate to folder where you'd like to add shortcut
3. Right-click folder name
4. Select "New Shortcut"
5. Wizard launches that walks you through finding the program you want the shortcut to point to, and giving the shortcut a name.
I knew it. Now, here comes the death of your stupid argument
- The steps you described are so complicated, no ordinary user can do it, even I have difficulty with this.
- The Windows way forces you to put a shortcut in the menu for a alpha-beta app that you will soon delete, so clutter your menu, is complicated to do (and you deliberately forgot some steps), and forces you to go through a wizard, which is tedious.
- At the very least, you now need 2 clicks (probably 3) to access your new shortcut, or several delays to replace the clicks.
- Me, not so sharp as you, but a real user of Linux, have TWO simple way to achieve MUCH BETTER than what you did : right-click the panel and "add a launcher" or right click the desktop and "add a launcher".
- I'm then presented with a simple dialog, with two tabs (basic, advanced, you are on basic by default), with things like "name", "comment", "command". I have all the other standard dialogs to browse, to find an icon for my launcher,
- On the panel and on the desktop, my new shortcut has far more visibility. Hell, I can even put an emblem on it, to have more visual cues. For example, a danger emblem, for all developpement versions I will have to delete later.
So the reasonning is different, but you, the self called "sharp user", who supposedly used Linux, can not come with that in mind, when two better solutions came to mine.
And you think Windows users put up with crap like yours, of putting shortcuts in menus, which need navigating a menu and several clicks ?
And you feel your example shows problems with the Linux desktop ?
I figured there must be a way
Why is it ok for linux to include everything but the kitchen sink (and beta drivers for that too), but microsoft is evil if it includes a web browser?
Back in the browser wars, MS would not include Netscape or other concurrent browsers in Windows.
Linux does offer every serious competitor.
Now, to answer your question, which is a carefully crafted one : MS is evil because it does not include "a" web browser, it includes ITS web browser ONLY.
Asking the question correctly, you can start to understand, but I know MS brain washing is very efficient.
Are you kidding us ?
... You did not understand one thing about security, specially in Windows environment.
Shells will compete with Monad ? You MS zealots are amazing. So now, shells, like bash, which are extremely powerful, extensively used and improved, cross-platform will compete with something that is not even in stable state yet ? Compete with sth that is not even cross-platform ? Compete with sth that does the same mistakes as csh ?
If you want a universal config GUI for Linux and its servers, there is webmin. Distros don't actually need to overload anything in Apache server config files, Apache already interoperates pretty well with anything, there is a plugin API available for that. Now, could you please have an interesting topic ?
KDE would, given the chance. It could take a while for the KPart to be officially accepted, but thats par for the course.
I don't know, the config file of Apache is easier to understand than any GUI I have seen.
Actually, I still haven't seen sth easier and safer than a config file to configure a server.
For doing small office things I would. Snob. In fact, anyone with a PC on their desk should be able to 'publish' web pages to the rest of their LAN as long as a sysadmin hasn't specifically disabled such services.
Even though everyone with a PC is not a sysadmin
You don't buy the "but it's too slow argument", OK, that's your right, and it is not surprising when your vision of programming is so narrow.
We are talking about a low level LIBRARY here. Which means reentrant, placement independant code, efficiency, API accessible easily to any language and compiler.
I think all of this is still very difficult to do right in other languages than C. It is already very difficult to do in C++.
Anyway, your language without buffer overflows would not use pointer arithmetic, so would create a zlib a lot slower than the one we now, even if you optimise your high level language to the max.
When you see that what takes time are basic lines of your language, you are toast.
Which illustrates well why we don't need ignorant people like you, because these tools already exists at least for Gnome, KDE and the command line, with applets in toolbars allowing you to switch resolution and refresh rate on the fly, with the desktops resizing of course. Of course, XFree automatically query your monitor through your graphic card for acceptable resolutions and refresh rates, and do that since several years.
And you dare explain that you would concentrate on a thing that is already implemented and working well ?
It just shows your experience of Linux is outdated, which is why we don't need clever people like you to help Linux go further.
> I'd quite like to see on-the-fly color depth changes though I understand that's far more difficult than resolution changes.
...
Yes, so difficult, no operating system has ever managed to do this correctly!
Oh wait, they all do, except for X. And they have been doing it for over ten years.
Searching a problem where there isn't any, right ? You are trying to tell us this is a flaw, whereas the color depth change was implemented because of flaws in apps ?
FYI, X is not an OS. X works on nearly every OS, even Windows, but still does can not do on the fly color depth change.
That is a limitation of its design, but not a flaw. Only badly behaving apps or apps that use workaround to be more efficient need color depth change : very old X apps made to work on very old video cards, games running in 16 bpp,
In our time, people even watch movies on their monitor, and 32 bpp (24 bpp actually) is the lowest color depth you could use for that. In our time, people are talking of translucency (meaning you are forced to use 32 bpp).
But there are still trolls like you that claim that it is a flaw to not be able to change color depth on the fly, even though I'm sure most of them do not change resolution on the fly.
For X, there are solutions for all the misbehaving apps (SDL for 16 bpp games for example).
But sth I'm sure will happen : as soon as LongHorn is out and you can't switch color depth without losing all the eye candy, these trolls will quietly stop.
I think developers would rather fix real problems, rather than your stupid trollish problem.
...
Are you telling me most users want to allow remote X terminal logins ? Are you insane or what ?
Devs won't cure your stupidity you know. Saying that there are problems in Linux because you don't know how to configure mdkkdm is STUPID. Because it is a Mandriva product, and because it has a GUI to configure it, perhaps even a man page.
To boot, your problem has nothing to do with "lack of standardization of filesystem layout", software installation or software configuration.
I'm not even a seasoned veterans, but I found without problem how to change mdkkdm to gdm in Mandriva, and then launch the GUI app to modify the settings.
I even know how to use the GUI package tool to find which package mdkkdm belongs to, and then find the files.
10 seconds of googling even tells me that mdkkdm uses the same config files than kdm, destroying you argument even further
Trolls like you are amazing because they manage to contradict themselves in one post. :
Things like
Other than "no viruses (yet)" and "it's free-(ish)", there's nothing. And both of those are easily answered in favor of Windows right now
and
If Linux was truly a better experience, people would flock to it
So for you, having to manage viruses is a better experience ? FYI, common users can't manage viruses.
Surely Linux is freer than Windows too.
The worst is that you didn't even give a clue or a basis as to why what you say is true.
Surely Windows is not "good enough" for everyone involved. You don't seem to know what a hotline is (there are plenty for unsatisfied Windows users) and you don't seem to know a lot of Windows PC lie unused, because the people who wanted to use them have no geek around them, to help them repair Windows.
If Linux came pre-loaded on computers, then people would have a choice, and could flock to it.
As long as they have to install it, I fail to see how they could flock to Linux.
Exposure is a word you fail to understand.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/eventserr ors.mspx
nuff said
Trolls like you modded +5 Insightful is scaring really !!
But I realise your comment applies to Windows too.
What I don't understand, is how someone can associate a free online support service with a failure or blaming users. It is there to help them on the contrary.
I have faith they'll eventually catch up.
But not unless people honestly admit there are flaws and they need to be rectified
And I'm tired of hearing this garbage.
Flaws in the Linux world are already identified, and this is not one.
What you describe is called : "no vendor support", it is identified since a long time ago, is not a flaw of Linux but a flaw of the vendor, and it is being addressed.
But people like you think FOSS drivers can come faster than the manufacturer of the soundcard.
At least, in the FOSS world, we are realistic.
I prefer not even talk about the rest of your post, because talking about intall procedure under Gentoo to describe driver installation in Linux is just insane. Driver installation under Mandriva puts a very different light on Linux, but you can't possibly know that. Worse, you talk about a problem that has been addressed.
Mandrake (now Mandriva) does that since a long time ago, and Mandrake Move (which is discussed here) does it too, through an option that comes like "let me shrink your Windows and install Linux in the free space"
That being said, WHAT'S TAKING SO DAMN LONG?! This stuff was figured out 10+ years ago, and pieces of it were even included in BeOS
:
I have VERY HIGH doubts that this thing is figured out.
Rather, I have the feeling that this is NOT figuret at all.
These query things are scarry.
I see so much problems if this thing replaces folders (which means you have no folder anymore), that it is overwhelming
- How do you set a static path to a file, when several have the same name ? Live queries are moving targets. Unique IDs are not enough IMHO.
- Interoperability between systems become a nightmare
- How do you manage a trashcan ? More importantly, how do you manage the trashcan without confusing the user ?
- Most normal users have BIG problems understanding how to make good queries in Google, but all of this suppose they will become proficient at making queries, and I have serious doubts about that
- How do you manage your pile of queries, once you have tens of them ? (I guess you don't, what a horrible mess)
- Where do you save a document ? I mean, you save it, you don't know where, but how do you get it back ? For example, you save it with Word 2003. Now you want to use Word 2005, or, say OOo. How do you do that ?
Well, I could manage this, and I think most computer scientists could, but Joe user ? I highly doubt it, even if they are not idiots. Better test this on some willing users before removing folders. I am unable to see how it can work without folders, to the point that it is frightening.
Queries are a big plus I guess, for power users, but to replace folders is foolish for now IMHO.
This is so illogical, and yet you get a Interesting mod ?
:
I wonder if people use their brain these days.
Now I explain the completely illogical thing : you just said that you compare a HISTORY to a TEXT FILE.
If you make an edit in a shell, the cursor DOESN'T magically fly down to the bottom either. But when you press Enter in a shell, it EXECUTES the command, and the command is ADDED to the HISTORY, which is the CORRECT behaviour, if I understand what a history is. In a text file, the same operation (pressing Enter) puts you at another line. So the effect is not the same, but you find a connection to the cursor ?
With your example, it shows only these things to me
- Windows "shell" history is not a history
- Windows "shell" is seriously broken, as it is not at all intuitive : if you go back to the 10th command you typed, how are you supposed to remember what the 9th and 11th command were ? I can remember I typed some commands, say, less than 5 commands before, I can't remember that it was between some others
This MS brainwashing is amazing, next thing, you will try to make us believe that multi-selection copy in Windows coming out in reverse order is intuitive.
Back to reality from your piece of FUD :
... Meanwhile, Linux geeks continue to stuff features still unheard of in MS Windows world, though some of them where already copied from Linux in WinXP.
...
There are a surprisingly large contingent of people who like to disparage anyone who comes to prefer an OS other than MS Windows (you included of course). They recognised that these people were right before, but they admit it only 5-10 years after, so that everybody forget they were naysayers before, so that they don't sound too ridiculous, and try keeping some kind of credibility. But amazingly enough, they are STILL naysayers now.
Yes, they put nonsense like MS accomplished a miracle with 2000/XP. Well, unfortunately for them, 2000/XP, though better than Win 9x, are still far from reality. XP still does not run and run, 2000 does not either. They slowly come to a halt, XP faster than 2000. These OS can run and run, if you put one service only on them, and tweak them for two plain days until they ressemble nothing you could work with, which is a process I call tedious, not a "miracle".
I never saw one of these OS run and run, but I suppose it is acheivable. Compared to a Linux that run and run without any tweak, there is still a chasm between the two OS.
Then, these MS shills come say that, I cite : "increased functionality almost always comes at the price of bloat".
When KDE, despite being stuffed with features at every new version, becomes more and more fast with each release.
I suppose this is due to wishfull thinking from people that still can't understand that a bunch of geeks can do better than a multi billion dollars company
So, these MS shills think that Windows has attained speed and stability of Linux : better let them think that, so they can't fight back efficiently. Of course, meanwhile, MS gave away trying to picture itself faster and more stable than Linux in their ad campaigns : they know they sound ridiculous. To be exact, they still try sometimes, comparing themselves with old versions of Linux, as even when degrading newer versions of Linux, they still come last.
With MS shills, it has come to a point where they firmly believe that BSOD does not exist anymore in WinXP or later !!!
They live in complete denial. And they try to picture themselves as "passionate believer in F/OSS". Of course, their words show the contrary : most of the time, they have no knowledge of F/OSS world. But they need to say that they are part of the community, to be credible when they say : "aiming to improve Linux to the state where it once again has many advantages over Windows". Amazing !
But the one thing we all Linux (or even Unix) guys saw coming is truely pitiful when you think about it : these MS shills will argue tooth and nail that things that do not exist in MS Windows are bad or not user-friendly or not needed. For example, the command line. But AS SOON AS MS release it (or vaporwares it) : OMG it's better than anything else, it will *kill* every similar other tool.
Now, one thing I wonder : how MSH will come superior to bash, when bash is cross-platform, and msh is not ?
It destroys one of the most important features of shells
The parent was undoubtedly referring to the pitiful state of printer support Linux at the time of the Windows 2000 launch in March 2000. At launch, Win2k had support for thousands of printers inbox. But with Linux, unless you had a fairly standard postscript or PCL4/5 compatible printer, printing was usually not even an option except in text mode.
Of course you are completely off-base on this one. CUPS was already very good (the thing you call Linux) already, and had thousands of drivers already. BUT, all these drivers were commercial (Cups Pro or sth). So there's a good chance you are wrong, but at least, tell the truth : the parent could have had support for its printer, but did not want to pay for it, as it was free on Windows. I agree with that, but stretching it to what you say is pitiful and going to far.
My guess is it probably took about 4 years for the parent's printer to receive support. Although a large number of inkjet printers have been added via either CUPS raster drivers or GIMP-print, it has been a slow and arduous process, and many are still unsupported.
And, as always, this has nothing to do with inability of Linux to support the printers, but is due to the fact that the manufacturer does all it can to NOT support Linux.
I'd say the 4 year figure may be about accurate.
And I find it pretty amazing that trolls manage to assert sth like that, when they don't even know the problematic printer.
But yeah, your guess should be right. Like my guess that this is a fake story without any base, made to disparage Linux.
Before you ask this question, you should ask : "Does ICC support Objective C ?" ...
Because if it doesn't, I wonder what good ICC can be for Apple
Seeing how something is done does not get you any understanding on *why* it was done.
Of course not. But then, LFS explains to you why it was done.
LFS is a book made for that. Show me another distro that explains the importance of the "build toolchain", and how to assure its integrity. I don't know one, except LFS, and other books based on it (like DIY Linux).
Show me other distros that explain how to compile things like glibc, how the environment must be before, and why.
Actually, LFS is pretty useful to understand how Linux works. I don't know such books on other distro BTW. You said they exist, at least point one of them. God, the toolchain integrity thing was unknown to me until LFS introduced it.
I never knew I could replace my init in other distros. And I think that is because I can't without suffering from lots of hassle.
I tried learning things with other distros (mostly Red Hat). I was burned very bad by the process : distros which are not source based are nearly impossible to maintain if you mix tarball software with them.
I did not try with Gentoo or Sorcerer, but I guess the problem is the same.
But it just shows me *every* technique I ue to learn Linux does not actually work in distros.
And if you are smart enough, way before you arrive at BLFS, you will understand the need for package management (paco ?) AND automated install (nALFS ?).
Strangely enough, you had problem keeping your system working. My internet frontend is a P75 200@133 MHz. I think you will understand why I do not upgrade it often (it takes 2+ days to compile the linux kernel, with everything else running of course). Actually, except for the kernel (when it becomes really dangerous not to upgrade) and iptables, I do not upgrade most things on it (like the mail gateway).
And it keeps running for months, until I decide keeping a kernel is too dangerous.
My main workstation, which all the family uses (since 2001) with my LFS based OS, is more powerful and up to date than any distro, even gentoo, and I have more power over it. You want example ?
Try installing KDE with gcc 4.0 (4.0.1 cvs for it not to bork KDE), or sabbu (for fansubbing) or a recent GCompris (6.5.3 ?) for my daughter on Gentoo (and make GCompris work of course, with the latest pygtk), or simpleinit-msb replace old sysvinit (erasing all complaints of parallel boot and hard to maintain boot scripts).
Now perhaps you start to understand why it is more powerful than even Gentoo for me, now that I learned so much with LFS.
Keeping my OS up to date is no effort (thanks FreshMeat and your automated subscribed notices), getting every FLOSS available to work is no problem. Sure, when I want a new program, I have to create a new XML file for nALFS (I have a template). I have no time to waste nowadays, so, if the program is so tedious it does not work in 5 minutes, I scrap it (or scrap the upgrade).
I really thank LFS for this powerful OS it allowed me to make.
Stupid argument from a clueless person. ...
FYI I use a LFS based OS since 2001, and I'm sure it is more up to date than any of your distros.
FYI, there is a site called FreshMeat, where people keeps track of software changes for you. Then, you can subscribe for it to send you notices when a package is updated. That is what I use.
I never overlooked any packages thanks to that site. I even let some Apache versions slip, because I knew that the new version did not gave me anything.
And thanks to my LFS system, I KNOW every server I installed !!
And even though I use some insecure packages on my Apache server, I still have to get owned
Remember, I still use the same system since 2001, it got through 3 big (dangerous) migrations (linux 2.6, udev, unicode), and is still there, and bleeding edge (except for mono), with package management and automated install, and at most 1 hour of install by month where it needs my interaction (updating some version numbers, sometimes one patch).
You are right about the learning bit, but could not be more wrong about the time using the system.
/. about how they can't get this or that working, whereas on my OS, it was so simple, I'm always impressed at how powerful this OS is. Idem when I still see people whining about parallelised boot, simpler boot scripts (well, I have this since 2001 !!!), or dependancy hell (I never got one, that's just impossible with my system I think).
I have a LFS based distro since 2001. My family and I uses it every day since january 2001, when I switched every one to my Linux OS. It is entirely automated (with nALFS, in which I contributed in the beginning) and with package management (with paco, in which I contributed too). The most time consuming parts where at start, when I had to create all my custom XML files for apps I wanted on my OS (1200+ files). Nowadays, the time consuming parts were big migrations : kernel 2.4 -> 2.6, devfs -> udev/hotplug/hal/dbus. Sometimes, when a new app appears, I have to create a new XML file, I take my termplate, modify it a bit, integrate it in nALFS, and then I launch the install. The time consuming part (say, 2 minutes) is actually reading the README, and the INSTALL file, when it is not generic, and finally reading the configure options.
For example, when a new KDE is out, I have it on my system one day after the release, with no more hassle than changing the version numbers in a file, launching nALFS, and then launching install of "KDE->base". It takes 2 minutes to do all that, then the automated installs compiles everything. Some smart people would then say : "yes but I can do that with Gentoo !".
Not so fast, you're wrong. I actually compiled my KDEs with gcc 4, which you can't do without much hassle in Gentoo. And it works without problem, because even though gcc 4.0.1 is not out, the CVS versions of it are out. All I had to do to eliminate gcc 4.0.0 bugs, was to change the version in my files to a CVS version, and then launch gcc install too.
You do not need to track down any security bug actually, especially because, once you have a system like mine, it seems you becomes smarter. I don't know if this is true, but, when I hear people say that you have to track security patches, I can only shake my head. Actually, all FLOSS software launch new versions of their software when they have corrected enough bugs, or added enough functionality, and that includes security bugs. Now, I'm subscribed to one of the most useful site of information for FLOSS on the net : Freshmeat. And Freshmeat has a feature that let's you register programs, and send you a notice when they are updated. Then, any decent OSS mail client (evolution, kmail) allows you to organize all your freshmeat notices in a directory. And so, I'm always aware of what's going on, of what software needs updating.
And when I choose too (sometimes once every 3 months or worse), I updates all my programs or the most important ones.
It doesn't take me more than 1 hour a month. You could say it is a lot, but that is what I was taking (at least) EVERY 2 DAYS (when not every day) on my Windows box.
When I see all the people whining on
Well, this is to say that really, this system is not the hassle it seems to be (except when you have to create your own XML files). I even have a completely automated x86 boot CD creation for my OS (allowing me to install it on anything from P75 200@133 to bi-AMD 2200+ and more). All that thanks to LFS and associated projects which taught me nearly everything.