I do see your point, really I do. You may be right, I don't know. What I do know is that I absolutely detest MS Office's interface, and by extension loathe the half-assed knockoff that is OOo's UI. Seriously, they had like 15 years of MS Office interface mistakes to learn from. Instead they seem bent on mindlessly duplicating every single one.
That having been said, I don't like Gimp's UI either. There's innovative and there's just bad. Never used Photoshop in my life so I dunno.
...they wouldn't be able to maintain their position if everybody felt they "have to work against it, instead of having it do work for me" (as you put it).
Are you out of your mind? Walk around any office in America from 8 to 5 on a weekday, and you will hear at least 10 people say that exact thing. Microsoft Office's "usability" is an abomination before the Lord.
Note that I am not pushing OOo here, because their UI is in fact a half-breed knockoff of MS Office. In fact, I'd go further still. Remember the old saw "all hardware sucks/all software sucks?" Well, all office suites do suck.
If OoO tried to be daring for once, and adopted a completely new set of paradigms, rather than mimicking MS Office......then all the world's desk jockeys would rise up and say "Why doesn't this thing work like Office??!" Not that I am trying to praise Office's interface, quite the contrary. I find it to be an abomination before the Lord. And I agree with your assessment of OOo being a "second rate knockoff of an already mediocre product." But they've painted themselves into a corner. If they're competing with MSO, then that's what they're going to be compared with, like it or not, whether it makes sense or not, whether the MSO way is The Right Way or not. Can't win for losing.
If you want to check out an office suite that isn't afraid to bend some rules, check out the beta of KOffice. It's pretty b0rk3n even for a beta, but I find some of the UI choices they've made to be extremely interesting. Not that I always like them, but at least they're trying.
For what values of "document?" I do a ton of fliers and brochures, and after torturing myself for years, I've given up on office suites altogether and have been using Scribus for about a year. It's been an amazing change in the way I get my work done. Trying to do what I do in any kind of word processor is like pulling my own teeth out with rusty pliers. There is just no word processor built for serious layout work. Anyway, after a while acclimating myself to Scribus, I've never once looked back. I'm not trying to push Scribus here (I like it, but I do find it balky and slow at times), just saying that the whole word processing paradigm is not for everyone.
FWIW, when I do need to "process words" I do it in KOffice, but my use cases for that are very simple (letters, invoices, etc.).
you're rather facetiously comparing the process of typing in the English language (which a number of people haven't mastered) to actually understanding command-line syntax.
I am certainly not. The shell spoonfeeds you the command, all you have to do is type. Or hunt and peck, whatever.
(First of all, I know I get potty-mouthed when I post drunk. Sorry 'bout that. Anyway, new day.)
Neither rpm nor deb are anything like "proprietary solutions." They're fully documented and mostly compatible. rpm --> deb can be accomplished trivially. As for the reverse, I think you can set up Red Hat based distros to use apt. Not my area of expertise, though.
Regarding your idea about package manager compatibility, that's not something that's possible on the lowest level. apt will probably never be compatible with rpm packages, and rpm will never be compatible with debs. What you're looking for is much more likely to be accomplished by a frontend, like this one.
Finally, as for "why don't they seem to care?" well, proponents of each believe their solution to be the technically superior one, of course. That's Linux, man, that's choice. Free software is about choice, even at the expense of growth, and that's a Good Thing, it's what got us this far and it'll carry us to the future.
deb has definitely become more the de facto standard over the past few years with the rise to prominence of Ubuntu. I mean, yeah, I wish everybody would just shut up and standardize on deb, but others feel the same way about rpm, and that's certainly their prerogative. fwiw, I absolutely never have trouble finding debs for stuff. Haven't in years. I'll admit that I'm spoiled because I do use Ubuntu and packages for it are everywhere, but I just I just don't find the whole deb/rpm debate to be as much of an issue as you're making it out to be.
First off, the post you replied to didn't mention Linux or Windows. They just said that we should probably know how to operate the machines we own. Which is true.
Second, speaking as someone who doesn't drive an automobile, there is nothing remotely resembling "turn the key and go" going on there. There's a lot going on there, an awful lot demanded of the operator, and a hell of a lot of pressure on you to not screw it up. That's why you have take a test and get licensed by the government and the police can stop you if you're doing it wrong. I find it nerve-wracking as hell, I just refuse to do it.
Computers aren't simple either (and if you think Windows "just works," I'd love to know what kind of work you mean). Computers, like cars, are complicated, sometimes demanding, sometimes even potentially dangerous machines. Maybe in 20 years we'll have driverless cars and computers we can talk to, but we're not there yet. Until we do get there, we as members of society have an obligation to learn at least the bare minimum required to operate one without being a danger to those around us.
Why would I want to pay $99 to get an OS to superficially imitate Windows yet still be unable to run thousands of Windows apps?
Totally agreed. The only reason I keep an XP install around is because I can't give up Civ 4. Why anyone would want to go out of their way to suffer through that UI without even being able to use the applications is completely beyond my ken.
It is rare that I would not find the answer to a Windows problem for free and without a wait on the Web(i.e. question asked, answer already posted.) For a Linux installtion there is a very good chance that I will not find the answer, and that I will have to post a question on a Blog somewhere and wait for an amateur hobbyist to either 1) tell me to read the fuckng manual or 2) after a day or two wait, actually give me the trivially short reply that I need to figure the problem out.
Seriously? I invariably find it to be the other way around. Maybe it's my search queries.
Like it or not, free or not, better or not, that is the way it really is. If the Linux community were motivated to cheerfully provide support (like say if they were getting paid) then the OS would be more popular. Instead the motivation to provide support is based on the knoledge that you are superior to the "noob" that is asking for help. This certainly does not endear the customer to the experience.
Oh, now I get it. You're just a troll. Never mind then, sorry to interrupt.
Well, here is the thing. I think most people understand that a computer has become an appliance. It's a machine to gather information, publish information, and a simple communications tool. Most people have come to know windows because it's loaded on every factory made box everywhere. I think that people want to spend time doing the things they do on a computer and not to learn about the machine or software they are using. It's all about being productive. *nix is a vastly more powerful OS in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it. The vast majority of people going to Wal-Mart to buy a computer don't care about this.
I agree with this completely.
The only way to make this customer happy is to emulate what they do know (outlook express, IE, Menu's, Office). If you can't do this 80% of the people buying your machine are going to be some what unhappy. Will some people learn a new way to do things, yes. However, even after they learn this still might not be enough as these are the same people who will likely become frustrated and have someone load windows back on their machine. If equipment manufacturers want to move away from windows they will need to provide a distro that looks and feels like windows and I haven't seen any distro that has accomplished this.
But here we part ways. If people don't care about their OS (and most don't), and just want an information appliance (and most do), then it follows that the important thing is not in fact "looking and feeling like Windows," but rather rather "facilitating the stuff they want to do." I don't think people care about Windows any more than they'd care they were running Linux. Whichever one did a better job of facilitating the stuff they want to do (which is a whole other debate that I'm not trying to enter here).
Last time I checked, Apple hardware wasn't running Windows. Yet, they've managed to take a *nix/BSD-derived OS and make it VERY simple and intuitive to use.
My mileage may vary, I take it? I find KDE (or yeah, even Gnome) much more easy to deal with than OS X. Granted, I've only sat behind a Mac for a grand total of maybe an hour in the last ten years, but it's supposed to be simple and intuitive, right? An hour should be enough time. An hour was enough to acclimate me to KDE4 for cryin' out loud, and that's a pretty major paradigm shift itself.
I fully agree with 1 - 3. I halfway agree with 4. But rather than expecting some "Linux" (whoever that is) to fix it, why not pin the blame where it belongs, on the manufacturer who put some half-assed distro that nobody in the world uses on their machines? Seriously, of course you can't find a Xandros package for $FOO, who the fuck uses Xandros?
You give them Ubuntu. You tell them that the files that they should use to install new stuff end in.deb. Done. This isn't complex stuff here, which makes me wonder why every goddamn company making netbooks out there can't fucking figure it out.
Bullshit. You do homework when you make a substantial (>US$300) purchase. You do homework when you buy a car. You do homework (or at least in-store comparisons) when you buy a washing machine or a surround-sound system or basically anything else you buy at Best Buy. But not a computer? An item that you're gonna have for probably the next five years of your life? No? WTF?
The rewarding of ignorance is what's wrong with this country.
Look, I'm not bashing Linux. I used it for a decade. But it is naive to expect people to willingly throw away their investment in Windows (time and money) simply to learn an OS that allows them to keep on doing the same things.
You almost got it there. The point is that Microsoft keeps asking for more of their time and money to continue doing the same things. Linux asks a little bit of time (and no money) up front, but then you're set to rock on through the next ten years or until the machine actually physically breaks. There's the incentive, and when you put it next to Vista, it pretty much sells itself.
I sell Ubuntu desktops and laptops, and I include something like this with every new rig that leaves my shop. It actually started as a textfile, but it's slowly mutating into a multimedia extravaganza, with screencasts, voice-overs, the whole nine yards. I'd like to wrap it all up in a script that automatically opens the applications I'm talking about at the time, so users can follow along with me. I've got too much time on my hands.
Ubuntu's pretty much got that one licked. You try to run something that isn't installed but is in the repository database, you get an error message along the lines of "$FOO is not installed. You can install it by typing sudo apt-get install $FOO."
Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now
on
GIMP 2.6 Released
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· Score: 1
There's nothing obscure about it. A poster above gave a very simple 2-step process that I had no trouble following along with even though I've never done it before. So no, it's just that you like to talk shit.
there are a lot more copmpanies out there that barely know what a PC is. Software houses are a tiny minority compared to retailers, to name one. Think how many back office staff exist to serve them compare to the number of programmers. Then go to the next class of business, repeat a thousand times.
So what? The number of individuals and organizations out there that are willing and able to write their code (or at least hack on someone else's) seems to be not only sustainable but growing. It must be, because I keep seeing new stuff pop up on Sourceforge, and it gets better every year. So why does it matter what kind of "tiny minority" it is?
Slashdot Mirror
I do see your point, really I do. You may be right, I don't know. What I do know is that I absolutely detest MS Office's interface, and by extension loathe the half-assed knockoff that is OOo's UI. Seriously, they had like 15 years of MS Office interface mistakes to learn from. Instead they seem bent on mindlessly duplicating every single one.
That having been said, I don't like Gimp's UI either. There's innovative and there's just bad. Never used Photoshop in my life so I dunno.
I'm always sceptical when people talk about using software seriously with "no problems". -->There, fixed it for you.
I'm always skeptical when people talk about using software seriously with "no problems". -->There, fixed it for you.
...they wouldn't be able to maintain their position if everybody felt they "have to work against it, instead of having it do work for me" (as you put it).
Are you out of your mind? Walk around any office in America from 8 to 5 on a weekday, and you will hear at least 10 people say that exact thing. Microsoft Office's "usability" is an abomination before the Lord.
Note that I am not pushing OOo here, because their UI is in fact a half-breed knockoff of MS Office. In fact, I'd go further still. Remember the old saw "all hardware sucks/all software sucks?" Well, all office suites do suck.
If OoO tried to be daring for once, and adopted a completely new set of paradigms, rather than mimicking MS Office... ...then all the world's desk jockeys would rise up and say "Why doesn't this thing work like Office??!" Not that I am trying to praise Office's interface, quite the contrary. I find it to be an abomination before the Lord. And I agree with your assessment of OOo being a "second rate knockoff of an already mediocre product." But they've painted themselves into a corner. If they're competing with MSO, then that's what they're going to be compared with, like it or not, whether it makes sense or not, whether the MSO way is The Right Way or not. Can't win for losing.
If you want to check out an office suite that isn't afraid to bend some rules, check out the beta of KOffice. It's pretty b0rk3n even for a beta, but I find some of the UI choices they've made to be extremely interesting. Not that I always like them, but at least they're trying.
For what values of "document?" I do a ton of fliers and brochures, and after torturing myself for years, I've given up on office suites altogether and have been using Scribus for about a year. It's been an amazing change in the way I get my work done. Trying to do what I do in any kind of word processor is like pulling my own teeth out with rusty pliers. There is just no word processor built for serious layout work. Anyway, after a while acclimating myself to Scribus, I've never once looked back. I'm not trying to push Scribus here (I like it, but I do find it balky and slow at times), just saying that the whole word processing paradigm is not for everyone.
FWIW, when I do need to "process words" I do it in KOffice, but my use cases for that are very simple (letters, invoices, etc.).
Are you serious? Have you ever seen a farm? The farmer didn't just find that corn growing there. Yes, those are their plants.
you're rather facetiously comparing the process of typing in the English language (which a number of people haven't mastered) to actually understanding command-line syntax.
I am certainly not. The shell spoonfeeds you the command, all you have to do is type. Or hunt and peck, whatever.
(First of all, I know I get potty-mouthed when I post drunk. Sorry 'bout that. Anyway, new day.)
Neither rpm nor deb are anything like "proprietary solutions." They're fully documented and mostly compatible. rpm --> deb can be accomplished trivially. As for the reverse, I think you can set up Red Hat based distros to use apt. Not my area of expertise, though.
Regarding your idea about package manager compatibility, that's not something that's possible on the lowest level. apt will probably never be compatible with rpm packages, and rpm will never be compatible with debs. What you're looking for is much more likely to be accomplished by a frontend, like this one.
Finally, as for "why don't they seem to care?" well, proponents of each believe their solution to be the technically superior one, of course. That's Linux, man, that's choice. Free software is about choice, even at the expense of growth, and that's a Good Thing, it's what got us this far and it'll carry us to the future.
deb has definitely become more the de facto standard over the past few years with the rise to prominence of Ubuntu. I mean, yeah, I wish everybody would just shut up and standardize on deb, but others feel the same way about rpm, and that's certainly their prerogative. fwiw, I absolutely never have trouble finding debs for stuff. Haven't in years. I'll admit that I'm spoiled because I do use Ubuntu and packages for it are everywhere, but I just I just don't find the whole deb/rpm debate to be as much of an issue as you're making it out to be.
You're out of your mind. Windows doesn't do anything out of the box.
First off, the post you replied to didn't mention Linux or Windows. They just said that we should probably know how to operate the machines we own. Which is true.
Second, speaking as someone who doesn't drive an automobile, there is nothing remotely resembling "turn the key and go" going on there. There's a lot going on there, an awful lot demanded of the operator, and a hell of a lot of pressure on you to not screw it up. That's why you have take a test and get licensed by the government and the police can stop you if you're doing it wrong. I find it nerve-wracking as hell, I just refuse to do it.
Computers aren't simple either (and if you think Windows "just works," I'd love to know what kind of work you mean). Computers, like cars, are complicated, sometimes demanding, sometimes even potentially dangerous machines. Maybe in 20 years we'll have driverless cars and computers we can talk to, but we're not there yet. Until we do get there, we as members of society have an obligation to learn at least the bare minimum required to operate one without being a danger to those around us.
Then what the fuck are you doing on Slashdot, man? Do you even know what we talk about here?
Totally agreed. The only reason I keep an XP install around is because I can't give up Civ 4. Why anyone would want to go out of their way to suffer through that UI without even being able to use the applications is completely beyond my ken.
Seriously? I invariably find it to be the other way around. Maybe it's my search queries.
Oh, now I get it. You're just a troll. Never mind then, sorry to interrupt.
I agree with this completely.
But here we part ways. If people don't care about their OS (and most don't), and just want an information appliance (and most do), then it follows that the important thing is not in fact "looking and feeling like Windows," but rather rather "facilitating the stuff they want to do." I don't think people care about Windows any more than they'd care they were running Linux. Whichever one did a better job of facilitating the stuff they want to do (which is a whole other debate that I'm not trying to enter here).
That's not a solution, as it involves typing.
So does email. So does the timer on your microwave. So does dialing a telephone. Get over it already.
Last time I checked, Apple hardware wasn't running Windows. Yet, they've managed to take a *nix/BSD-derived OS and make it VERY simple and intuitive to use.
My mileage may vary, I take it? I find KDE (or yeah, even Gnome) much more easy to deal with than OS X. Granted, I've only sat behind a Mac for a grand total of maybe an hour in the last ten years, but it's supposed to be simple and intuitive, right? An hour should be enough time. An hour was enough to acclimate me to KDE4 for cryin' out loud, and that's a pretty major paradigm shift itself.
I fully agree with 1 - 3. I halfway agree with 4. But rather than expecting some "Linux" (whoever that is) to fix it, why not pin the blame where it belongs, on the manufacturer who put some half-assed distro that nobody in the world uses on their machines? Seriously, of course you can't find a Xandros package for $FOO, who the fuck uses Xandros?
You give them Ubuntu. You tell them that the files that they should use to install new stuff end in .deb. Done. This isn't complex stuff here, which makes me wonder why every goddamn company making netbooks out there can't fucking figure it out.
[citation needed]
Bullshit. You do homework when you make a substantial (>US$300) purchase. You do homework when you buy a car. You do homework (or at least in-store comparisons) when you buy a washing machine or a surround-sound system or basically anything else you buy at Best Buy. But not a computer? An item that you're gonna have for probably the next five years of your life? No? WTF?
The rewarding of ignorance is what's wrong with this country.
Look, I'm not bashing Linux. I used it for a decade. But it is naive to expect people to willingly throw away their investment in Windows (time and money) simply to learn an OS that allows them to keep on doing the same things.
You almost got it there. The point is that Microsoft keeps asking for more of their time and money to continue doing the same things. Linux asks a little bit of time (and no money) up front, but then you're set to rock on through the next ten years or until the machine actually physically breaks. There's the incentive, and when you put it next to Vista, it pretty much sells itself.
I sell Ubuntu desktops and laptops, and I include something like this with every new rig that leaves my shop. It actually started as a textfile, but it's slowly mutating into a multimedia extravaganza, with screencasts, voice-overs, the whole nine yards. I'd like to wrap it all up in a script that automatically opens the applications I'm talking about at the time, so users can follow along with me. I've got too much time on my hands.
Ubuntu's pretty much got that one licked. You try to run something that isn't installed but is in the repository database, you get an error message along the lines of "$FOO is not installed. You can install it by typing sudo apt-get install $FOO."
There's nothing obscure about it. A poster above gave a very simple 2-step process that I had no trouble following along with even though I've never done it before. So no, it's just that you like to talk shit.
Definitely. Let's take our cue from the guys who named their software company after a clay hut. That sounds like professionalism there.
WTF? This is Slashdot. This is where we come to argue. Are you new?
there are a lot more copmpanies out there that barely know what a PC is. Software houses are a tiny minority compared to retailers, to name one. Think how many back office staff exist to serve them compare to the number of programmers. Then go to the next class of business, repeat a thousand times.
So what? The number of individuals and organizations out there that are willing and able to write their code (or at least hack on someone else's) seems to be not only sustainable but growing. It must be, because I keep seeing new stuff pop up on Sourceforge, and it gets better every year. So why does it matter what kind of "tiny minority" it is?