First, MS has only been successful in things that they can bind to Windows (prime example is MS Office which generates about 40% of MS revenues, a phyrric victory is IE which generates no revenue but was also pushed by the Windows domination), everything else is losing money.
All the following projects have been canceled:
- Windows/Mips
- Windows/PowerPC
- Windows/Alpha
- "HomeR" Project
- Modular Windows
- "Otto" Project (SW for cars; 1992)
- MMOSA (Set-Top-boxes Operating System
- WebTV
- Blackbird/Internet Studio (1995)
- proprietary MSN (Microsoft should have become the sole ISP, remember?)
- COOl (C++ Object Orientated Language)
- PenWindows
- Microsoft Bob
- Ultimate TV
- Hailstorm (2001 - 2002)
Those projects are losing money:
- XBox (revenues declined by 40% in Q1 2003, losses nearly doubled (+96%) http://www.golem.de/showhigh.php?file=/0305/25460. html&wort[]=xbox sorry, link is in German)
- Non-proprietary MSN
- Mice, keyboards
- Cell phone OS (Stinger)
I don't know where all the "MS will win automatically" people crawl from, if you look at their track record, they have lots and lots of unsuccessful projects.
If you look at the big picture, MS is currently being stripped off everything except their core business (x86-desktop). And wether MS is really able to make the 64-Bit transition is questionable. They are so incompetent in producing something 64Bit that they will lose a lot of people to Linux/Athlon64, even on the desktop.
In the non-graphic embedded market, Linux is already the standard, on cellphones Symbian is the standard and Linux is coming, leaves only PDAs, where Microsoft is still holding out (but there Linux is coming, too).
Actually, it's quite funny that Richard Stallman, who (AFAIK) hasn't contributed a single line of code to the Linux kernel, is attributed as "Linux leader".
Everytime something happens, somebody comes up with a crackpot theory of how all this is just a big conspiracy controlled by Microsoft.
(rolling eyes)
Microsoft are incompetent bullies, not evil geniuses. Heck, they can't even implement 64Bit Windows in a timely manner and will lose a lot of their server marketshare in the 32->64 Bit conversion.
Both SCO and Sun feel the heat from Linux. If this pointless suit gives Sun the opportunity to market their expensive hardware, why shouldn't Sun take that opportunity?
Usually the easy explanation is the right one.
Anyway, Sun certainly will not stop selling Linux machines, too and in 2 months this suit will be forgotten anyway.
I think you're misinformed. The KDE 3.1 packages for Red Hat are here [redhat.com].
They sure weren't available at launch and AFAIK those packages are the same "inofficial" packages that were floating around a week ago or so.
I wonder if RedHat even bothered to test them, I mean they have fired their only KDE-contributor - who is actually in charge of KDE at RedHat?
Besides, isn't it possible that this guy might prefer GNOME over KDE, or is GNOME also "crippled"?
If he prefers a desktop with bad configurability, a confusing registry-like system, a cultivated mish-mash of newer and older code and a flush of "yeah, this will be implemented soon" and "with Mono/.NET everything will be better" marketing driven promises he might as well stay at Windows.
GNOME looked quite OK at version 1.4 (actually I preferred the look over KDE although the functionality wasn't at the same level), but version 2 and above is definitely a step back and only barely better than the Windows GUI which is probably the most primitive GUI out there.
If they wanted to emulate Windows, the GNOME team forgot that people use Windows because of Win32 compatibility and not because of their GUI.
But, OK, that's just MO.
You can find all the configuration options on the start menu. For instance, to change the desktop background, click start menu, Preferences, Background. To change the screen fonts, click start menu, Preferences, Fonts. Seems pretty easy and consistent to me. If you want all of the options within one application, you can run GNOME Control Center, also available in the Preferences menu.
So you declare the startmenu as the control-center and think all problems are adressed?
Are you saying the whole distro is worthless because the system settings are in the start menu instead of a control center?
No, I don't say that. I say that this is a minor flaw that contributes together with alot of other minor and major flaws and the complete lack of any advantage over other distros to the worthlessness of RedHat.
Yeah, debian is a bit outdated (but this time they got KDE3.1 packages right at the release) but you get something in return (apt-get and extreme stability), so it's a tradeoff and it depends wether it's the right distro for you or not. But with KDE3.1 debian packages on time, I don't see them as that outdated anymore on the desktop side.
I don't see anything special about RedHat that would make up their flaws, though.
I don't see why. The configuration of the desktop is different, but the code is same. For instance, Red Hat did not re-write the KDE CD Player for Bluecurve. When a Red Hat user finds a bug in kscd, the bug will be in all other distributions, as well.
and:
Bluecurve is not a fork; it's a repackaging. What Red Hat has done with KDE is similar to what Galeon has done with Mozilla, or what Apple's Safari has done with Konqueror.
According to your logic, Safari users could send bugreports right to the KDE-team.
But of course you know very well that that is nonsense. But in the case of Safari it's not a problem because nobody would confuse Safari with Konqueror. If RedHat would call their stuff RDE instead of KDE, it wouldn't be a problem either.
You can get them from the Rawhide links I posted above, or you can get them here [sourceforge.net]. Just because you can't get them from kde.org doesn't mean you have to compile them yourself.
So you have to rely on a bunch of people to do what is the job of the distributor? The KDE team cooperates with distributors and delay the release announcement for about a week so that distributors have enough time to create and test their packages. Every major distributor did that except one.
This loyality really ticks me off. If SuSE would do something like that (like not providing official packages for a big KDE release in a timely manner), I would say "screw them" and switch to someone else.
Actually all 4 points can be said about SuSE, too.
Actaully, I doubt points 2) and 4), while SuSE is the main distro-contributer in KDE, ALSA, ReiserFS and XFree and has major contributions in the Kernel (porting Linux to mainframes, >4GB RAM support, porting Linux to Opteron), I have never heard of any project initiated by or lead by Xandros. But maybe you can enlighten me.
Other than that, I can't comment on Xandros because I haven't tried it so far.
On the desktop, SuSE, debian and Gentoo all have advantages and disadvantages.
SuSE has easy install, great consitency, great localization and good hardware detection.
debian is certainly the best tested distro out there and comes with apt-get, a very good and comfortable update mechanism. Install isn't that comfortable though.
Gentoo is a bleeding-edge distro and will run faster if you optimize compiler settings. Installation takes a long time and stability might suffer, though.
To summarize, all the above have advantages and disadvantages, while with RedHat you only get the disadvantages plus the RedHat-only disadvantages like no KDE3.1 packages, an inconsistent desktop that makes any support by 3rd parties impossible and sometimes a broken toolchain.
My tip: Just use any non-RedHat distribution with KDE 3.1
Because he's a first-time Linux user. Compiling and installing the dozen or so KDE packages is not a task I would recommend to a Linux newbie.
Goddamn, that was my point.
KDE 3.1 is available for all non-RedHat distros in nice easily installable binary package. Only RedHat users have to compile.
I don't think we want to torture this guy. The idea is to show him that Linux can be just as easy to use as Windows.
Exactly. And RedHat can't accomplish that. He will have to mess with different configuration tools in different places and that sucks. (Or can I set IP-adresses, screen resolution, firewall settings, desktop colors and wallpaper in the same config center in RedHat?)
RedHat is confusing and with Bluecurve it's also lagging behind and inconsistent.
No matter what you think about the politics of Bluecurve, I think we can all agree it improves the out-of-box experience for new Linux users like our friend dj_paulgibbs.
No we can't.
Bluecurve is crippled, it is inconsistent with all other distros, causes RedHat to lag behind in availability of packages and makes bugreports from RedHat users worthless. Since when do we cheer up unecessary forks? Just because RedHat does it, it's all of the sudden a good idea?
Just look at SuSE how to make a fine consistent desktop with consistent configuration in one place (in the KDE control center you can set everything from colors to IP-adresses). Debian is as inconsistent as RedHat but has other advantages (apt-get), so does Gentoo.
RedHat is a nice server but it is a crappy desktop. *ALL* the prejudices that I hear like inconsistent configuration, crappy localization, difficult to update packages (on RedHat you do have to compile KDE 3.1 on no other major distro you have to do that!) come from RedHat.
Running RedHat on a desktop is like running a rackmount as a desktop.
It can be done, but it's awkard.
Try SuSE, you get a good desktop and (gasp) consistent config tools in one place. Or try Mandrake, you get the latest desktop and good config tools. Or try Debian, you get an ultra-stable system that can be easily upgraded. Or try Gentoo, you get a faster system on the bleeding edge.
Just use a real KDE 3.1 on a non-RedHat distribution and you will never look back at MS Windows.
KDE does use multiple desktops by default, but it does not switch when moving to the screen edge. (which I don't like either, btw) I use KDE for over 5 years by now and I have never seen a default installation on which it would.
So even if you have 4 desktops, you will stay on the first one if you don't intentionally switch the desktop, therefore I don't see newbies confused by it.
It's always been one of the most disorientating features of every *NIX WM that I've ever used -
I'm feeling sorry for you that you are disoriented by multiple desktops.
accidentally move your mouse to the corner of the screen to click that close box? Oh, you're now on another desktop.
KDE isn't doing that by default. You probably used GNOME/RedHat as a desktop? This is like using a cheap rackmount as a desktop. Awkard, annoying and just plain wrong.
You can use KDE with just one desktop without ever knowing that there are more.
But the window opens in the foreground which is still awkard. Also you need both hands while middle-clicking can be done one-handedly.
I knew the IE-diehards wouldn't understand
I recently had a similar discussion, he just refused to try anything that's not from Microsoft and said "I don't need that" on every feature I told him.
If I open an Konqueror window on desktop 1, another on desktop 2 and a third on desktop 3, then close them, log out, log in, I get one window on desktop 1, another on desktop 2 and a third on desktop 3. And you probably guessed it, they all load the correct pages.
Opera can't do that, nor can any other browser I have tried.
It's just faster. What you can do with Windows in 10 seconds, I can do with tabs in 3.
And it's more organized. While I have no problems using about a dozen browser windows on my 16 desktops with about 5-10 webpages in each windows, I have severe problems managing more than 10 IE windows in MS Windows.
What you "IE-only" users will never understand is how Goggle was meant to be used:
1. Middle-click on each interesting entry
Instead, the Microsoft way is:
1. Right-click interesting entry
2. choose "open in new window"
3. Go back to main window
This takes not only Much longer, but is also very awkard because you can't organize your windows. I have every Google-search in a different window, while you would end up with 20 different windows from different searches.
Or click through all interesting links and wait everytime for the page to load.
Once you really understand what tabs can do for you, you will never go back.
That wasn't very clear. AFAIK Galeon and Phoenix also remembers some kind of tab-set, but it won't appear automagically and works only with one window. AFAIK Konq is the only browser that opens all windows on the correct desktops, in their correct geometries and with the last used URLs in them.
Actually Konqueror asks you if you really want to close the window if (and only if) there are more than one tabs open.
KDE/Konqueror is also the only browser overall that can remember the pages between login/logouts, btw.
What's so bad about maximized browser windows?
on
Hyatt Discusses Tabs
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
I read all the time that "newbies use browsers maximized and don't need tabs".
I don't consider myself a newbie, but I use almost exclusively maximized browser windows BECAUSE tabs and multiple desktops allow me that in a comfortable manner.
I don't get it: Why would anybody want to not maximize his browser windows?
SMB is fine for office and simple day-to-day activities, but it does not preserve UNIX file system semantics.
Actually, that's a feature, too.
When implementing a low-security directory read/writable for all users (yes, I do want that user A can create a file and user B can delete it), I did not find another way.
If anybody knows how to create that with NFS, I'd want to hear it.
Of course, unless you are a KDE hater who never uses KDE apps on a matter of principle, you might find Konqueror much more useful, as it can get remote files without any hassles, making it the ideal solution for temporary networks (= what scp/ssh is usually used for, permanent networks are usually done by nfs after all).
That said, LUFS is still a great thing and greatly enhances the flexibility of Linux.
After 10 years, I can assure you, any of the lower grade hard drives will have horrible stiction [sunmanagers.org] problems.
Actually, newer harddrives don't suffer from that problem anymore.
Anyway, sure in 10 years, the harddrive will be broken. But the data won't be lost because I will have moved it to a newer drive. - That was my whole point.
A burned CD has a lifespan of about 10 years. After that (and often before that) it will lose data, become unreadable, etc.
So when you have all your data on CD, you are stuck with hundreds of CDs in a few years. - Will you *really* read everyone again and move the data to something else?
That's why I use CDs only as short-term backup and medium to carry my music in my car CD-player.
It's much smarter to copy all important data on a second hard drive - You can move all you data in one go when you upgrade.
Slashdot Mirror
First, MS has only been successful in things that they can bind to Windows (prime example is MS Office which generates about 40% of MS revenues, a phyrric victory is IE which generates no revenue but was also pushed by the Windows domination), everything else is losing money.
All the following projects have been canceled:
- Windows/Mips
- Windows/PowerPC
- Windows/Alpha
- "HomeR" Project
- Modular Windows
- "Otto" Project (SW for cars; 1992)
- MMOSA (Set-Top-boxes Operating System
- WebTV
- Blackbird/Internet Studio (1995)
- proprietary MSN (Microsoft should have become the sole ISP, remember?)
- COOl (C++ Object Orientated Language)
- PenWindows
- Microsoft Bob
- Ultimate TV
- Hailstorm (2001 - 2002)
Those projects are losing money:
- XBox (revenues declined by 40% in Q1 2003, losses nearly doubled (+96%) http://www.golem.de/showhigh.php?file=/0305/25460
- Non-proprietary MSN
- Mice, keyboards
- Cell phone OS (Stinger)
I don't know where all the "MS will win automatically" people crawl from, if you look at their track record, they have lots and lots of unsuccessful projects.
If you look at the big picture, MS is currently being stripped off everything except their core business (x86-desktop). And wether MS is really able to make the 64-Bit transition is questionable. They are so incompetent in producing something 64Bit that they will lose a lot of people to Linux/Athlon64, even on the desktop.
In the non-graphic embedded market, Linux is already the standard, on cellphones Symbian is the standard and Linux is coming, leaves only PDAs, where Microsoft is still holding out (but there Linux is coming, too).
Actually, it's quite funny that Richard Stallman, who (AFAIK) hasn't contributed a single line of code to the Linux kernel, is attributed as "Linux leader".
(rolling eyes)
Microsoft are incompetent bullies, not evil geniuses. Heck, they can't even implement 64Bit Windows in a timely manner and will lose a lot of their server marketshare in the 32->64 Bit conversion.
Both SCO and Sun feel the heat from Linux. If this pointless suit gives Sun the opportunity to market their expensive hardware, why shouldn't Sun take that opportunity?
Usually the easy explanation is the right one.
Anyway, Sun certainly will not stop selling Linux machines, too and in 2 months this suit will be forgotten anyway.
They sure weren't available at launch and AFAIK those packages are the same "inofficial" packages that were floating around a week ago or so.
I wonder if RedHat even bothered to test them, I mean they have fired their only KDE-contributor - who is actually in charge of KDE at RedHat?
Besides, isn't it possible that this guy might prefer GNOME over KDE, or is GNOME also "crippled"?
If he prefers a desktop with bad configurability, a confusing registry-like system, a cultivated mish-mash of newer and older code and a flush of "yeah, this will be implemented soon" and "with Mono/.NET everything will be better" marketing driven promises he might as well stay at Windows.
GNOME looked quite OK at version 1.4 (actually I preferred the look over KDE although the functionality wasn't at the same level), but version 2 and above is definitely a step back and only barely better than the Windows GUI which is probably the most primitive GUI out there.
If they wanted to emulate Windows, the GNOME team forgot that people use Windows because of Win32 compatibility and not because of their GUI.
But, OK, that's just MO.
You can find all the configuration options on the start menu. For instance, to change the desktop background, click start menu, Preferences, Background. To change the screen fonts, click start menu, Preferences, Fonts. Seems pretty easy and consistent to me. If you want all of the options within one application, you can run GNOME Control Center, also available in the Preferences menu.
So you declare the startmenu as the control-center and think all problems are adressed?
Are you saying the whole distro is worthless because the system settings are in the start menu instead of a control center?
No, I don't say that. I say that this is a minor flaw that contributes together with alot of other minor and major flaws and the complete lack of any advantage over other distros to the worthlessness of RedHat.
Yeah, debian is a bit outdated (but this time they got KDE3.1 packages right at the release) but you get something in return (apt-get and extreme stability), so it's a tradeoff and it depends wether it's the right distro for you or not. But with KDE3.1 debian packages on time, I don't see them as that outdated anymore on the desktop side.
I don't see anything special about RedHat that would make up their flaws, though.
I don't see why. The configuration of the desktop is different, but the code is same. For instance, Red Hat did not re-write the KDE CD Player for Bluecurve. When a Red Hat user finds a bug in kscd, the bug will be in all other distributions, as well.
and:
Bluecurve is not a fork; it's a repackaging. What Red Hat has done with KDE is similar to what Galeon has done with Mozilla, or what Apple's Safari has done with Konqueror.
According to your logic, Safari users could send bugreports right to the KDE-team.
But of course you know very well that that is nonsense. But in the case of Safari it's not a problem because nobody would confuse Safari with Konqueror. If RedHat would call their stuff RDE instead of KDE, it wouldn't be a problem either.
You can get them from the Rawhide links I posted above, or you can get them here [sourceforge.net]. Just because you can't get them from kde.org doesn't mean you have to compile them yourself.
So you have to rely on a bunch of people to do what is the job of the distributor? The KDE team cooperates with distributors and delay the release announcement for about a week so that distributors have enough time to create and test their packages. Every major distributor did that except one.
This loyality really ticks me off. If SuSE would do something like that (like not providing official packages for a big KDE release in a timely manner), I would say "screw them" and switch to someone else.
Actaully, I doubt points 2) and 4), while SuSE is the main distro-contributer in KDE, ALSA, ReiserFS and XFree and has major contributions in the Kernel (porting Linux to mainframes, >4GB RAM support, porting Linux to Opteron), I have never heard of any project initiated by or lead by Xandros. But maybe you can enlighten me.
Other than that, I can't comment on Xandros because I haven't tried it so far.
SuSE has easy install, great consitency, great localization and good hardware detection.
debian is certainly the best tested distro out there and comes with apt-get, a very good and comfortable update mechanism. Install isn't that comfortable though.
Gentoo is a bleeding-edge distro and will run faster if you optimize compiler settings. Installation takes a long time and stability might suffer, though.
To summarize, all the above have advantages and disadvantages, while with RedHat you only get the disadvantages plus the RedHat-only disadvantages like no KDE3.1 packages, an inconsistent desktop that makes any support by 3rd parties impossible and sometimes a broken toolchain.
My tip: Just use any non-RedHat distribution with KDE 3.1
Goddamn, that was my point.
KDE 3.1 is available for all non-RedHat distros in nice easily installable binary package. Only RedHat users have to compile.
I don't think we want to torture this guy. The idea is to show him that Linux can be just as easy to use as Windows.
Exactly. And RedHat can't accomplish that. He will have to mess with different configuration tools in different places and that sucks. (Or can I set IP-adresses, screen resolution, firewall settings, desktop colors and wallpaper in the same config center in RedHat?)
RedHat is confusing and with Bluecurve it's also lagging behind and inconsistent.
No matter what you think about the politics of Bluecurve, I think we can all agree it improves the out-of-box experience for new Linux users like our friend dj_paulgibbs.
No we can't.
Bluecurve is crippled, it is inconsistent with all other distros, causes RedHat to lag behind in availability of packages and makes bugreports from RedHat users worthless. Since when do we cheer up unecessary forks? Just because RedHat does it, it's all of the sudden a good idea?
Just look at SuSE how to make a fine consistent desktop with consistent configuration in one place (in the KDE control center you can set everything from colors to IP-adresses). Debian is as inconsistent as RedHat but has other advantages (apt-get), so does Gentoo.
RedHat is a nice server but it is a crappy desktop. *ALL* the prejudices that I hear like inconsistent configuration, crappy localization, difficult to update packages (on RedHat you do have to compile KDE 3.1 on no other major distro you have to do that!) come from RedHat.
RedHat is not ready for the desktop, Linux is.
Why wait?
Why not just install KDE 3.1 which is available easily for every major non-RedHat distribution?
RedHat's decision to crippl^W make BlueCurve was stupid which is proven by the absence of official KDE3.1 packages for RedHat.
Seems like RedHat has finally become the Microsoft in the Linux world. Everybody is waiting for them to get their act together.
It can be done, but it's awkard.
Try SuSE, you get a good desktop and (gasp) consistent config tools in one place. Or try Mandrake, you get the latest desktop and good config tools. Or try Debian, you get an ultra-stable system that can be easily upgraded. Or try Gentoo, you get a faster system on the bleeding edge.
Just use a real KDE 3.1 on a non-RedHat distribution and you will never look back at MS Windows.
So even if you have 4 desktops, you will stay on the first one if you don't intentionally switch the desktop, therefore I don't see newbies confused by it.
I'm feeling sorry for you that you are disoriented by multiple desktops.
accidentally move your mouse to the corner of the screen to click that close box? Oh, you're now on another desktop.
KDE isn't doing that by default. You probably used GNOME/RedHat as a desktop? This is like using a cheap rackmount as a desktop. Awkard, annoying and just plain wrong.
You can use KDE with just one desktop without ever knowing that there are more.
I knew the IE-diehards wouldn't understand
I recently had a similar discussion, he just refused to try anything that's not from Microsoft and said "I don't need that" on every feature I told him.
That's what multiple desktops are for.
If I open an Konqueror window on desktop 1, another on desktop 2 and a third on desktop 3, then close them, log out, log in, I get one window on desktop 1, another on desktop 2 and a third on desktop 3. And you probably guessed it, they all load the correct pages.
Opera can't do that, nor can any other browser I have tried.
Why?
To view the desktop wallpaper?
When I use an app I usually want to use as much of the screen as possible (which is the whole screen minus administrative bars).
Of course I also use windows occasionally side by side, but in most cases it doesn't make sense.
It's just faster. What you can do with Windows in 10 seconds, I can do with tabs in 3.
And it's more organized. While I have no problems using about a dozen browser windows on my 16 desktops with about 5-10 webpages in each windows, I have severe problems managing more than 10 IE windows in MS Windows.
1. Middle-click on each interesting entry
Instead, the Microsoft way is:
1. Right-click interesting entry
2. choose "open in new window"
3. Go back to main window
This takes not only Much longer, but is also very awkard because you can't organize your windows. I have every Google-search in a different window, while you would end up with 20 different windows from different searches.
Or click through all interesting links and wait everytime for the page to load.
Once you really understand what tabs can do for you, you will never go back.
That wasn't very clear. AFAIK Galeon and Phoenix also remembers some kind of tab-set, but it won't appear automagically and works only with one window. AFAIK Konq is the only browser that opens all windows on the correct desktops, in their correct geometries and with the last used URLs in them.
Actually Konqueror asks you if you really want to close the window if (and only if) there are more than one tabs open.
KDE/Konqueror is also the only browser overall that can remember the pages between login/logouts, btw.
I don't consider myself a newbie, but I use almost exclusively maximized browser windows BECAUSE tabs and multiple desktops allow me that in a comfortable manner.
I don't get it: Why would anybody want to not maximize his browser windows?
Yes, it should.
Please make some coffee, then wait untill it is cold enough to drink it. Then put a finger or another bodypart into it and you will find out that:
Goddamn, I'm happy not to life in the US.
Actually, that's a feature, too.
When implementing a low-security directory read/writable for all users (yes, I do want that user A can create a file and user B can delete it), I did not find another way.
If anybody knows how to create that with NFS, I'd want to hear it.
That said, LUFS is still a great thing and greatly enhances the flexibility of Linux.
Actually, newer harddrives don't suffer from that problem anymore.
Anyway, sure in 10 years, the harddrive will be broken. But the data won't be lost because I will have moved it to a newer drive. - That was my whole point.
A burned CD has a lifespan of about 10 years. After that (and often before that) it will lose data, become unreadable, etc.
So when you have all your data on CD, you are stuck with hundreds of CDs in a few years. - Will you *really* read everyone again and move the data to something else?
That's why I use CDs only as short-term backup and medium to carry my music in my car CD-player.
It's much smarter to copy all important data on a second hard drive - You can move all you data in one go when you upgrade.