Funny you should say that when a full-blown installation of with a couple thousand packages including practically every kind of software you could conceive of, support for 50 languages, a thousand libraries and dozens of full-blown application development frameworks and a handful of IDEs, with source code for everything, would probably still be smaller than a Vista installation.
Well the way I see it, you have two options. Well, three, but replacing the printer is stupid.
Option 1: Run an OS which doesn't require manufacturers to redo all that work every couple of years. You know, one designed for the long term, as opposed to the constant inexorable, but pointless, upgrade cycle which is the only way some companies seem to be able to survive.
Option 2: Run an older version of Windows in a VM. Or dual boot. These are not great options, but for a home user, it would certainly be better than turning a perfectly functional piece of hardware into a doorstop and shelling out a bunch more money because Microsoft hates you.
Where I work, we replaced a couple of PDP-11 computers with PCs for the energy savings alone, even if there was a cost associated with migrating the software.
Especially since your phone probably has more power than a VAX, if not I/O capacity.
Why must he change? If something works, you should keep it working. I thought the whole idea of desktop gizmos was stupid and pointless when Active Desktop first came out and I have yet to see any reason why I should think differently. Aside from a clock in the taskbar I cannot image any use for all those stupid gadgets floating around. If people like them, that's fine. I, however, have no use for them.
Of course, I stopped using Windows some time ago. Vista was the last straw. Microsoft is evil and has absolutely nothing useful to contribute to the world any more. They are a drain on technology and productivity. The world would be much better off without them.
And this, folks, is perhaps the single best explanation of what's wrong with two-party politics. Listen closely to *any* political commentary in the USA, and you'll see this effect at work. Arguments become talking points about positioning sides rather than the merits of the arguments.
You sound like one of those God-hating, baby-killing, pot-smoking, terrorist-appeasing liberal Democrats.
If KDE 4.0 had more bugs than those releases, I'll be pretty surprised.
I wouldn't be. KDE was not really usable, regardless of the intention of the developers. I'm not saying this as a criticism, just fact. 4.1 was somewhat usable and Kubuntu using it as a default on Intrepid was a mistake, IMO. By the time Jaunty ships, 4.2 will have been shaken out, and maybe 4.3 will be available. I've been using 4.2 since beta 1 or so, and I really like it. I think it's ready for primetime now. It isn't perfect, nor is it as complete as 3.5.x was, but it has the functionality and stability to make it usable on a daily basis without you wanting to pull your hair out.
Whether or not the way the 4.x rollout went was a mistake, I think it's good now and think we should focus on moving forward and applauding the developers for their hard work and successes.
I was going to suggest you left out Congresspersons, but I suppose no one has proved they are actually life forms and not some very bizarre mineral formations.
konqueror is still a file manager, the only difference is that dolphin is the default one on kde4
Konqueror seems to have lost about half of its functionality in KDE 4 as a file manager. Maybe it will return over time, but I really preferred using Konqueror under KDE 3.5 than Konqueror or Dolphin on KDE 4. I'm currently running the KDE 4.2 nightlies and while it's decent and usable, it's still lacking some of the things I liked about 3.5, like Konqueror having the built in FileSize view.
So why waste all the energy on Microsoft including a (mandatory, in this day and age) browser integrated in the OS that is already being used less and less by people.
That was never the central issue of Microsoft's monopolistic behaviors in my opinion. It's just the one that got the most press, especially because Netscape was calling the "Waaaahmbulance" over the fact that IE simply got better than Netscape after a couple years. It Netscape hadn't undergone the dreaded "bloated and buggy version 4 effect" (see Windows and DOS for examples), they could have remained competitive.
However, when Microsoft can essentially force every new computer to be shackled with Windows, especially when by no objective standards is Windows usable on that machine as we saw with Vista, we have a problem. When Microsoft can (and does) prevent OEMs from bundling competitive software on their products we have a problem. When Microsoft practices "embrace, extend and extinguish" crippling competitors by effectively hijacking and then breaking the standards, we have a problem. And if you go back far enough, when Microsoft's products have a tremendous advantage of undocumented functionality in the operating system that other companies, except maybe select "partners" (*cough*$$$*cough*), don't have, there is a problem.
Bundling the browser would never have been a problem if all these other clearly illegal practices hadn't been going on at the same time. The truth is that most of the damage was done by the early 90's. By that time, Microsoft's advantages were so unfair that it grossly distorted the market for software to this very day.
By MS "improving software", you really mean "copying the competition and releasing it 5 years later."
Hey, even if they're being dragged kicking and screaming out of 1998, they are still moving forward. Microsoft has been a boat anchor on the state of the art in software for too long. Any little bit they are forced to improve makes everyones live better. It's high time that Microsoft remembers their customers are customers, not slaves, not victims, not prisoners.
The truth is people here want to cripple Windows to boost Linux adoption.
Windows is already crippled. We want to cripple Microsoft. Specifically, we want to cripple Microsoft's ability to foist Windows upon us in a way where it does not have to compete with alternatives based on merit. If there were truly a free market, there are plenty of Microsoft products that would disappear because they are really bad. If there are some that are actually competitive on merit, then everyone wins because the status quo of software in general is improved, but as it stands, Microsoft is now a boat anchor, dragging everyone down to their level because they have the power to prevent real competition.
As it stands, they don't need to better than anyone else, and trust me, they haven't bothered for the better part of a decade. What part of Vista is geared towards making customers happier than they were with XP? Maybe improved security, but frankly I don't even think it wins there because of UAE, er, UAC, which is just Microsoft's way of passing the buck to the user.
In the one place in the consumer world where a little true competition exists, the browser, we can already the Microsoft's product is losing market share rapidly.
Furthermore, if Microsoft states a minimum platform requirement, this should mean that an average person would find the computer usable with Vista. I bought a low-end laptop for my wife. I added an extra gig of RAM before I even turned the machine on... meaning it had 1.5 GB. It was literally the slowest computer I've ever used, and that counts an Amiga 500. You could double-click on the Firefox icon and it would sit for 30 seconds before you'd even get an hourglass icon, and another 30-60 seconds before the browser was usable (and it was so slow as to be maddening).
This shows the utter contempt that Microsoft has for their users. Gateway is partially responsible, but frankly I imagine they were strongarmed into totally sabotaging their products, because no sane person would choose to do this.
Microsoft has shown they have nothing but hatred for their users. We, as customers, are being punished because they are a monopoly and are ticked off that customers actually expect value for their money. This is why I contend that Microsoft literally has nothing to offer any more and is nothing but a drain on society and a drain on the industry.
As long as it wasn't Source Safe, a product so bad I wouldn't even use it to store the Vista source code. Oh wait, I would because I'd want it to be lost.
Slashdot Mirror
Stupid /.
Plain Old Text is not.
What I'd actually typed was "full-blown installation of [insert-your-favorite-distro]" but with brackets.
[edit]
And then of course I have to wait two minutes, because apparently /. assumes everyone is a quadriplegic who types with a stick in his mouth.
Funny you should say that when a full-blown installation of with a couple thousand packages including practically every kind of software you could conceive of, support for 50 languages, a thousand libraries and dozens of full-blown application development frameworks and a handful of IDEs, with source code for everything, would probably still be smaller than a Vista installation.
Why are American citizens wasting money to fund President Obama's completely unnecessary Super Bowl party in D.C.???
We're wasting hundreds of billions on "bailouts" that will, at best, not make things substantially worse. Why complain about pocket change?
Well the way I see it, you have two options. Well, three, but replacing the printer is stupid.
Option 1: Run an OS which doesn't require manufacturers to redo all that work every couple of years. You know, one designed for the long term, as opposed to the constant inexorable, but pointless, upgrade cycle which is the only way some companies seem to be able to survive.
Option 2: Run an older version of Windows in a VM. Or dual boot. These are not great options, but for a home user, it would certainly be better than turning a perfectly functional piece of hardware into a doorstop and shelling out a bunch more money because Microsoft hates you.
Where I work, we replaced a couple of PDP-11 computers with PCs for the energy savings alone, even if there was a cost associated with migrating the software.
Especially since your phone probably has more power than a VAX, if not I/O capacity.
Why must he change? If something works, you should keep it working. I thought the whole idea of desktop gizmos was stupid and pointless when Active Desktop first came out and I have yet to see any reason why I should think differently. Aside from a clock in the taskbar I cannot image any use for all those stupid gadgets floating around. If people like them, that's fine. I, however, have no use for them.
Of course, I stopped using Windows some time ago. Vista was the last straw. Microsoft is evil and has absolutely nothing useful to contribute to the world any more. They are a drain on technology and productivity. The world would be much better off without them.
... won't be the Year of Windows on the Desktop either.
So you're saying that to properly answer the question you'd have to /. /.?
Next, how to use your farts, produced while using a computer (wasted right now), to increase its power.
I'm channelling mine to Washington. Each fart produces more brainpower than Capitol Hill produces in a week.
Thanks for saving me from having to point that out.
And this, folks, is perhaps the single best explanation of what's wrong with two-party politics. Listen closely to *any* political commentary in the USA, and you'll see this effect at work. Arguments become talking points about positioning sides rather than the merits of the arguments.
You sound like one of those God-hating, baby-killing, pot-smoking, terrorist-appeasing liberal Democrats.
If KDE 4.0 had more bugs than those releases, I'll be pretty surprised.
I wouldn't be. KDE was not really usable, regardless of the intention of the developers. I'm not saying this as a criticism, just fact. 4.1 was somewhat usable and Kubuntu using it as a default on Intrepid was a mistake, IMO. By the time Jaunty ships, 4.2 will have been shaken out, and maybe 4.3 will be available. I've been using 4.2 since beta 1 or so, and I really like it. I think it's ready for primetime now. It isn't perfect, nor is it as complete as 3.5.x was, but it has the functionality and stability to make it usable on a daily basis without you wanting to pull your hair out.
Whether or not the way the 4.x rollout went was a mistake, I think it's good now and think we should focus on moving forward and applauding the developers for their hard work and successes.
I was going to suggest you left out Congresspersons, but I suppose no one has proved they are actually life forms and not some very bizarre mineral formations.
I heartily recommend "censuring" posts when appropriate. I think you're referring to "censoring" posts.
konqueror is still a file manager, the only difference is that dolphin is the default one on kde4
Konqueror seems to have lost about half of its functionality in KDE 4 as a file manager. Maybe it will return over time, but I really preferred using Konqueror under KDE 3.5 than Konqueror or Dolphin on KDE 4. I'm currently running the KDE 4.2 nightlies and while it's decent and usable, it's still lacking some of the things I liked about 3.5, like Konqueror having the built in FileSize view.
So why waste all the energy on Microsoft including a (mandatory, in this day and age) browser integrated in the OS that is already being used less and less by people.
That was never the central issue of Microsoft's monopolistic behaviors in my opinion. It's just the one that got the most press, especially because Netscape was calling the "Waaaahmbulance" over the fact that IE simply got better than Netscape after a couple years. It Netscape hadn't undergone the dreaded "bloated and buggy version 4 effect" (see Windows and DOS for examples), they could have remained competitive.
However, when Microsoft can essentially force every new computer to be shackled with Windows, especially when by no objective standards is Windows usable on that machine as we saw with Vista, we have a problem. When Microsoft can (and does) prevent OEMs from bundling competitive software on their products we have a problem. When Microsoft practices "embrace, extend and extinguish" crippling competitors by effectively hijacking and then breaking the standards, we have a problem. And if you go back far enough, when Microsoft's products have a tremendous advantage of undocumented functionality in the operating system that other companies, except maybe select "partners" (*cough*$$$*cough*), don't have, there is a problem.
Bundling the browser would never have been a problem if all these other clearly illegal practices hadn't been going on at the same time. The truth is that most of the damage was done by the early 90's. By that time, Microsoft's advantages were so unfair that it grossly distorted the market for software to this very day.
By MS "improving software", you really mean "copying the competition and releasing it 5 years later."
Hey, even if they're being dragged kicking and screaming out of 1998, they are still moving forward. Microsoft has been a boat anchor on the state of the art in software for too long. Any little bit they are forced to improve makes everyones live better. It's high time that Microsoft remembers their customers are customers, not slaves, not victims, not prisoners.
The truth is people here want to cripple Windows to boost Linux adoption.
Windows is already crippled. We want to cripple Microsoft. Specifically, we want to cripple Microsoft's ability to foist Windows upon us in a way where it does not have to compete with alternatives based on merit. If there were truly a free market, there are plenty of Microsoft products that would disappear because they are really bad. If there are some that are actually competitive on merit, then everyone wins because the status quo of software in general is improved, but as it stands, Microsoft is now a boat anchor, dragging everyone down to their level because they have the power to prevent real competition.
As it stands, they don't need to better than anyone else, and trust me, they haven't bothered for the better part of a decade. What part of Vista is geared towards making customers happier than they were with XP? Maybe improved security, but frankly I don't even think it wins there because of UAE, er, UAC, which is just Microsoft's way of passing the buck to the user.
In the one place in the consumer world where a little true competition exists, the browser, we can already the Microsoft's product is losing market share rapidly.
You can run RockBox on at least some iPods. You can't do that with the Zune, AFAIK. That's a big difference.
Well, since the DoJ (as well as Congress) is their bitch, no one at Microsoft will ever suffer for anything the company does.
The phrase you are looking for is "could have".
Furthermore, if Microsoft states a minimum platform requirement, this should mean that an average person would find the computer usable with Vista. I bought a low-end laptop for my wife. I added an extra gig of RAM before I even turned the machine on... meaning it had 1.5 GB. It was literally the slowest computer I've ever used, and that counts an Amiga 500. You could double-click on the Firefox icon and it would sit for 30 seconds before you'd even get an hourglass icon, and another 30-60 seconds before the browser was usable (and it was so slow as to be maddening).
This shows the utter contempt that Microsoft has for their users. Gateway is partially responsible, but frankly I imagine they were strongarmed into totally sabotaging their products, because no sane person would choose to do this.
Microsoft has shown they have nothing but hatred for their users. We, as customers, are being punished because they are a monopoly and are ticked off that customers actually expect value for their money. This is why I contend that Microsoft literally has nothing to offer any more and is nothing but a drain on society and a drain on the industry.
"From where do you want to get pwned today?"
It's 2009... I can't believe we're still dealing with this crap in 2009.
No, that would just suck because the rest of it would be a warned over remake of a Star Trek:TOS episode.
As long as it wasn't Source Safe, a product so bad I wouldn't even use it to store the Vista source code. Oh wait, I would because I'd want it to be lost.
I guess most Americans just like getting screwed.
U.S. Election results tend to confirm this hypothesis.