So can you explain why all commercial non-RedHat distributions were able to make inroads in countries where they were dominating, while RedHat completely failed at doing so?
Seems like all non-RedHat distributions achieved that without bastardizing KDE.
So what you describe as a problem doesn't seem to be a problem at all.
Maybe you should work for redhat and get them back on track. you do so much complaining, so where is this superior solution of yours??? you want the world to start using linux??? get up on the ball and write your own gui for linux that does better than what's out now.
Just use *ANY* commercial non-RedHat distribution. SuSE works like a charm, as does Mandrake. You get into a nice KDE-interface and then you can choose with one click if you would like KDE to be just KDE or imitate Windows, MacOS or classical Unix GUIs.
So there you have your newbie-compatible settings (Windows-like) but you are still going to keep advanced users (KDE-defaults), you even have settings for Mac-Linux converts and old Unix-users. This is in stock-KDE, available for a long time already.
Just because RedHat is ignoring solutions, doesn't mean they don't exist.
Microsoft has delayed the wide usage of a GUI by half a decade (GUIs were already common on everything but PCs in the late 80's) and delayed the wide usage of the Internet by a similar time (Microsoft tried to push their own proprietary MSN in the early 90's).
Yet everytime I hear how Microsoft has brought computers to the masses and similar complete and utter nonsense.
Now let's look at RedHat:
Everywhere in the world, especially in Europe, Linux has already made inroads on the desktop.
Only in the USA, where a GNOME-centric distribution is dominant, Linux is pretty nonexistant on the desktop.
(Look at Usenet statistics, dammit! On non-technical usegroups the Linux-share is typically 3-4 times higher in European usegroups.)
I'm no big fan of RedHat's new interface, but I have not doubt that sooner or later they will be able to put out some usable default interface. (Yes, I do know that RedHat shipped KDE, but it was not the default and the newbie will always use the default which is why defaults are important)
What really bothers me is that RedHat will get credit for bringing Linux to the masses while in reality they have done everything to delay mass adoption.
I'm sick of Mac users telling me what to think and use.
Now, I *DID* buy a Mac. (A G3-400 "Pismo" Powerbook)
But stuff like this certainly makes me buying another Mac less probable.
It's not this single problem. It's a combination of too high prices, their idiotic one-mouse-button dioctrine, suing everybody, purposely crippling their low-end models and reducing choice. There are some things I like about Macs, for example the low power-consumption.
If Apple doesn't want me as a customer, I'll go somewhere else.
This whining is in reality the remaining hopes that Apple finally gets a clue and will listen to user's complaints.
If they don't get a clue, their marketshare will continue to erode and the Macintosh-platform will die within this decade.
If you would actually start to read some details about MS, you would realize that Microsoft are not the evil geniuses Slashdotters and MSFT-shareholders like to see them, they are a rather incompetent company that just got lucky getting to make the OS for IBM.
I'm so sick of people seeing MSFT-conspiracies in everything.
The AOL-PC is great news for desktop-Linux, why do so many people have problems accepting something positive about Linux?
If the 200$ PC takes off (and I don't see a reason it shouldn't - it *IS* the cheapest PC available by a large margin), this could even pressure game companies to do Linux-ports.
Xbox is a superior console, and the only reason for playstation to do better is because of marketing/brand recognition, momentum.
XBox is only a (slightly) superior console because it has 2 years of technology advantage. XBox is the clearly inferior platform compared to PS2.
Face it: x86 is not suited for a console. Of course you CAN do it, but as some engineer once said: "We can make this building fly, but you won't like the bill". Putting a x86 into a console is stupid. All that backwards-compatibility is not needed and it will cost way too much to produce.
When PS3 is released, MSFT has 3 choices:
Release a more expensive and less performant XBox2 at the same time plus spend 1 billion/year just to keep it alive.
Wait 2 years until x86-tech is good and cheap enough and then release a more performant - but still more expensive XBox2. (Just like PS2 vs. XBox1) They'll also need about 1 billion/year just to keep it alive.
Let XBox die and pretend it never happened.
If you ask me, I'd say choice 3 is the most probable thing Microsoft will do.
First, you would copy it after the section and THEN delete the section.
For replacing, both methods are roughly equal, IMO. But Unix-style has the advantage that you paste all with the mouse and don't need to mess with the keyboard. Sometimes it's a matter of preference.
But that's why KDE supports *BOTH* MacOS-style *AND* Unix-style, anyway.
I'm not saying that we will never have Gigabit LANs. I just say it's stupid and unnecessary to put it in *ALL* computers *RIGHT NOW*. (No, I will not call a device without PCI slots and integrated monitor a real computer)
Sure Apple can offer it. No argument.
But they shouldn't force it onto their customers.
The step from 10MBit to 100MBit was fast, but the step from 100 to 1GBit will take longer because many harddisks can't saturate this bandwidth. As long as harddisks don't improve drastically in speed or RAID becomes standard, I don't see GBit as neccessity.
It is significantly cheaper to put ports like that on the motherboard than to make people buy PCI cards, not to mention the cost of trying to support whatever crap card the user digs up at his local CompuBuy store. I'll bet Firewire adds less than $5 to the cost of goods, and gigabit Ethernet (vs 10/100) adds less than $10 to cost of goods. And don't forget the economies of scale of purchasing and manufacturing so many units.
Well, maybe. But then I don't see Apple passing the savings to the user.
Hell, Apple could be cheaper than most PCs. A PPC is (contrary to the common belief) much cheaper than any x86 CPU. But they prefer to be a high-margin low-marketshare business, it seems.
Have you bitched at Microsoft for putting a 10/100 Ethernet port on the X-Box when most people will probably never use it?
Actually, yes I have. I have even called it "the Mac of consoles" because of the unnecessary harddrive (an bundled memorycard would have accomplished the same at a much lower cost). XBox is a comatose patient that needs 1 billion per year just to stay alive. And it will die anyway when PS3 is released... But that's offtopic, I think.
Part of the reason Windows and Unix users have problems with the Mac's one button (and whine incessantly about it, to such a degree that you want to put *their* testicles in a vise), is because they tend to be unused to the click-and-hold action. On a modern Mac, this will get you the exact same action as the right-click menu. What in God's name you need a third button for, besides having another part to break, beats the hell out of me.
You may not believe it, but I feel bored in the second I have to wait for that menu to pop up.
And I need the 3rd button to put windows in the background, jump on scrollbars, open links in new tabs and paste selections of course.
Did I mention that I'd like a mouse-wheel, too?
Macs are expensive, but the price is still acceptable compared feature-wise to top PC-brands. But on Macs you are forced to buy a lot of crap which you don't need and/or will have to replace (Firewire, 1GBit LAN, 1-button mouse) which makes them really expensive compared to a PC that contains only what you are going to use.
Gimp is not responsible for Windows' crappy GUI. In KDE you can easily push windows into the background by middle-clicking them or you can *gasp* use a dedicated virtual desktop just for Gimp.
If you don't like it, create a dumbed-down Windows-version of Gimp that tries to make up Window's deficencies, but don't expect the creators of Gimp to make Gimp worse.
SuSE has an awful license. I'll be avoiding it as much as possible.
You are allowed to do everything you could do with GPLed software (copy, redistribute, modify, redistribute modified versions) except you are not allowed to resell it for money (or create a commercial distribution out of it)
And this is true only for YaST and SaX, most of SuSE's work (ReiserFS, ALSA, contributions to XFree, KDE, Linux, etc.) are released under free licenses.
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Seems like all non-RedHat distributions achieved that without bastardizing KDE.
So what you describe as a problem doesn't seem to be a problem at all.
Just use *ANY* commercial non-RedHat distribution. SuSE works like a charm, as does Mandrake. You get into a nice KDE-interface and then you can choose with one click if you would like KDE to be just KDE or imitate Windows, MacOS or classical Unix GUIs.
So there you have your newbie-compatible settings (Windows-like) but you are still going to keep advanced users (KDE-defaults), you even have settings for Mac-Linux converts and old Unix-users. This is in stock-KDE, available for a long time already.
Just because RedHat is ignoring solutions, doesn't mean they don't exist.
Which was exactly the point of my post.
But it has PCI slots which makes it usable for years to come.
Microsoft has delayed the wide usage of a GUI by half a decade (GUIs were already common on everything but PCs in the late 80's) and delayed the wide usage of the Internet by a similar time (Microsoft tried to push their own proprietary MSN in the early 90's).
Yet everytime I hear how Microsoft has brought computers to the masses and similar complete and utter nonsense.
Now let's look at RedHat:
Everywhere in the world, especially in Europe, Linux has already made inroads on the desktop.
Only in the USA, where a GNOME-centric distribution is dominant, Linux is pretty nonexistant on the desktop.
(Look at Usenet statistics, dammit! On non-technical usegroups the Linux-share is typically 3-4 times higher in European usegroups.)
I'm no big fan of RedHat's new interface, but I have not doubt that sooner or later they will be able to put out some usable default interface. (Yes, I do know that RedHat shipped KDE, but it was not the default and the newbie will always use the default which is why defaults are important)
What really bothers me is that RedHat will get credit for bringing Linux to the masses while in reality they have done everything to delay mass adoption.
But also let us have our opinion about it. We are free to say it.
Now, I *DID* buy a Mac. (A G3-400 "Pismo" Powerbook)
But stuff like this certainly makes me buying another Mac less probable.
It's not this single problem. It's a combination of too high prices, their idiotic one-mouse-button dioctrine, suing everybody, purposely crippling their low-end models and reducing choice. There are some things I like about Macs, for example the low power-consumption.
If Apple doesn't want me as a customer, I'll go somewhere else.
This whining is in reality the remaining hopes that Apple finally gets a clue and will listen to user's complaints.
If they don't get a clue, their marketshare will continue to erode and the Macintosh-platform will die within this decade.
Excuse me, but how is that not luck?
You only have (a maximum of) 2 eyes so it won't get any more "3D" than that.
I'm so sick of people seeing MSFT-conspiracies in everything.
The AOL-PC is great news for desktop-Linux, why do so many people have problems accepting something positive about Linux?
If the 200$ PC takes off (and I don't see a reason it shouldn't - it *IS* the cheapest PC available by a large margin), this could even pressure game companies to do Linux-ports.
I don't see any reason why somebody using AOL and not much more on a Pentium1 on Win95 should not buy this 200$ PC when his old PC breaks.
He saves at least 100$ and it does what he needs.
This is a great step for Linux on the desktop. This will give pressure to peripheral-builders to release Linux-drivers.
But I guess whining about "probably isn't enough" is probably more l33t, I guess.
XBox is only a (slightly) superior console because it has 2 years of technology advantage. XBox is the clearly inferior platform compared to PS2.
Face it: x86 is not suited for a console. Of course you CAN do it, but as some engineer once said: "We can make this building fly, but you won't like the bill". Putting a x86 into a console is stupid. All that backwards-compatibility is not needed and it will cost way too much to produce.
When PS3 is released, MSFT has 3 choices:
If you ask me, I'd say choice 3 is the most probable thing Microsoft will do.
For replacing, both methods are roughly equal, IMO. But Unix-style has the advantage that you paste all with the mouse and don't need to mess with the keyboard. Sometimes it's a matter of preference.
But that's why KDE supports *BOTH* MacOS-style *AND* Unix-style, anyway.
Nifty, eh?
Sure Apple can offer it. No argument.
But they shouldn't force it onto their customers.
The step from 10MBit to 100MBit was fast, but the step from 100 to 1GBit will take longer because many harddisks can't saturate this bandwidth. As long as harddisks don't improve drastically in speed or RAID becomes standard, I don't see GBit as neccessity.
Got any proof of that statement?
Meanwhile Winamp, ICQ and WMP give a shit about any guidelines and continue to be very popular.
Most businesses have just migrated to 100MBit.
I think it's very safe to say that most current Macs won't need 1GBit LAN even if you assume a livespan of 6 years.
Well, maybe. But then I don't see Apple passing the savings to the user.
Hell, Apple could be cheaper than most PCs. A PPC is (contrary to the common belief) much cheaper than any x86 CPU. But they prefer to be a high-margin low-marketshare business, it seems.
Have you bitched at Microsoft for putting a 10/100 Ethernet port on the X-Box when most people will probably never use it?
Actually, yes I have. I have even called it "the Mac of consoles" because of the unnecessary harddrive (an bundled memorycard would have accomplished the same at a much lower cost). XBox is a comatose patient that needs 1 billion per year just to stay alive. And it will die anyway when PS3 is released... But that's offtopic, I think.
Of course Apple can and should offer machines with Firewire and Gigabit LAN, but they should also offer machines without it! (But with PCI slots)
If it were superior it would support Unix-style copy-paste (which is much faster than MacOS-style).
You may not believe it, but I feel bored in the second I have to wait for that menu to pop up.
And I need the 3rd button to put windows in the background, jump on scrollbars, open links in new tabs and paste selections of course.
Did I mention that I'd like a mouse-wheel, too?
Macs are expensive, but the price is still acceptable compared feature-wise to top PC-brands. But on Macs you are forced to buy a lot of crap which you don't need and/or will have to replace (Firewire, 1GBit LAN, 1-button mouse) which makes them really expensive compared to a PC that contains only what you are going to use.
If you don't like it, create a dumbed-down Windows-version of Gimp that tries to make up Window's deficencies, but don't expect the creators of Gimp to make Gimp worse.
Also, even if it were true, this is hardly an architectural flaw that would made it necessary to "trow KDE out".
You are allowed to do everything you could do with GPLed software (copy, redistribute, modify, redistribute modified versions) except you are not allowed to resell it for money (or create a commercial distribution out of it)
And this is true only for YaST and SaX, most of SuSE's work (ReiserFS, ALSA, contributions to XFree, KDE, Linux, etc.) are released under free licenses.