DVD recorders with (and without) internal HDs are all over the place!
You can also use DVD-RW disks for recording single watch material. And the machines act exactly like VHS except record to DVD. Even the ones that allow you to hook up to a service for more ease of setup for recording don't generally REQUIRE it for it to work. I don't use it on my toshiba...
VHS is dead for any new recording that is for sure. However, everyones collections of VHS will of course sit around till it rots or 100 cups of coffie later are transferred to DVD...
BS. If Linux developers cared AT ALL it would be EASY to make linux binary compatible with itself across versions at least 5 years apart.
But when in "stable" kernel point releases I find that there have been mid struct member additions in the USB subsystem (Something you would get an F in any software engineering course) then there is NO HOPE.
The Linux development environment has ZERO care about compatibility from point version to point version or even from distro to distro and THAT is the problem.
Maybe that's the way the geeks like it but is it a user nightmare that (listening to you and others like you) is obviously going to be around forever.
It took about 8 weeks to deliver but they sent us the manual right away and I used it to learn basic and wrote 4 game programs on paper before it arrived:)
A networked, mirrored RAID system is nice and somewhat safer than not mirrored and all but that is still not anywhere near anything like a "backup".
If you get a 1 TB mirrored RAID array going say, you will then need a third 1TB of REMOVEABLE storage to "backup" that system if you actually care about the data on it. A messy power outage, lightning strike, fire or other mishap can take out data even on the safest of RAID configurations. Your data will be MUCH safer sitting somewhere not connected to electricity or being accessed when disaster strikes.
Make backups on removeable media and then keep the media away, in a fireproof container or off-site.
In fact, if money is tight, i.e. can't afford THREE times the drive space as you really need for mirroring+backup, it is far safer to buy two sets of drives but do not RAID them, instead of mirroring use the second set of drives for your removeable backup!
SATA now allows you to use hard drives as live removeable media (as long as your SATA controller and driver actually supports it).
Then of course, remember to sync your on-line and off-line storage regularly:)
No, because a baking thermometer does not track progress. During baking the temp usually remains constant.
However, using a visual representation of a thermometer to track the progress of a school backing sale to fund the cheerleaders trip to Washington for cheerleading finals would qualify as prior art of the concept at least.
What really stinks is how ideas that have been in use in various forms for years, decades or even centuries are suddenly now new and novel becuase they are used on a computer. The word "non-obvious" has been completey removed as a screening criteria from the patent process.:(
That type of patenting must be stopped and all previous such obvious patents reversed.
I find it far more ignorant that he (and ANYONE on/.) assumes evil just because they don't understand something than truly finding out what is going on. He did only the BAREST of debugging on the situation, got to a point where he thought he could cause a big stir and get his name in the headlines again.
He's a COMPLETELY irresponsible net wag, he has shown this time and time again. It's fine to bring up the question of what is going on here and to even point out the flaw. But the leap into "Microsoft coded a back door into WMF" with what little evidence he has is just jaw droppingly stupid. And the way that/. just EATS IT UP is jaw droppingly disheartening.
Yes, there is something going on, it should be investigated. Screaming "BACK DOOR!!!!" when nothing he has presented even remotely suggests such a thing beyond self promoting fantasy is just plain... ignorant!
I didn't say it wasn't a bug, It probably is a bug, or an orphaned or stupidly repurposed piece of code, it may even be an exploit (though that has not been shown). But face it, the article was posted because of it's inflammatory crack pot conslusion, not a bug found in WMF.
And "some music player"? ANY program that has been shown to have root able flaws (Known, admitted to and patches made available mind you) does take much more precidence over foundless MS bashing any day, yes.
Isn't this the same Steve Gibson that was freaking out about how Raw Sockets in XP were going to destroy the world a couple of years ago?
S.G. is a flaming idiot, he looks for (and imagines) ghosts and spooks in every corner. Then flogs his conspiracy theories to promote himself and his buisness. This probably holds about as much water as the "discovery" of cold fusion and Korean human cloning.
Why aren't we reporting on REAL bugs like the 4 security vulnerabilities found in iTunes this week which opens both Windows and Mac users to external attack? Was the Microsoft bashing quota too low this week?
The moderation system has been the tool that has been used here forever to lift up or silence users. Maybe it's time for editors and story submitters to play too? If it's good enough for us, then surely it's good enough for you!
Let the readers directly provide feedback via a rating system like that now imposed on other readers! Then articles could be ranked 0 to 5, Informative, Interesting, Informertial, KarmaWhoring etc...
Scarey thought isn't it? Think you could handle it?
Hubble has had a good run, but in it's lifetime a dozen or more extremely high quality ground scopes with much more sophisticated imaging gear have been built here on earth. Using adaptive optics and imaging solutions (similar to the ones that "fixed" the hubbels blurry main mirror btw) they are even besting it for image clarity and with much larger aperatures are able to go even deeper than hubble in a shorter amount of exposure time.
Every available scope IS useful, but the Hubble has reached a point where it's maintenence is far more costly than the amount of service it is currently providing.
We whould celebrate Hubble for it's ground breaking discoveries, but not become so emotionally attached that it blinds us to it's current age, cost and other limitations.
Moderation reinforces group-think which is the Wiki's main problem to begin with.
Pretty soon you'll have a database of "facts" that conform only to how people want to perceive them. Not based on any actual validation for correctness.
"Facts" are generally known to an astonishingly small number of people. Not that there are only 5 people that know anything in the world of course. Each person in the world probably knows one fact really well. But that doesn't stop 5000 others that/think/ they know the fact better, but in truth don't, from completely sinking an entry with misinformation.
Group-think already wins the day at Wiki now, but a moderation system will only make it worse. I hate to use/. as a negative example, but the group-think and "common wisdom" that is enforced by the moderation system here is scarey at times. Modding does eliminate the bottom rung of true trolls, but it also ends up moderating down an awful lot of people with discenting opinions, no matter how factual or correct they may be.
And how many thousands of times has bad information been corrected just to revert back to the bad information again because the original idiot contributer saw his warped world views changed?
Virtually anyone that actively maintains articles has to put up with this. Real information is generally known only by a few. Belief without facts, conspiracy theories and incomplete knowledge of a subject is/far/ more common.
It's fine for one crackpot to put up some unsupported conspiracy theory on their own web site. But Wikipedia is supposed to be a real information site, or atleast, that's what a huge number of people believe. But frequently entries contain huge amounts of misinformation, then, if said misinformationfor some reason sits well with the commons (not that they know anything about it, but they like the way it sounds) suddenly you have a false entry propigating itself forever because more people like the way it sounds better than the way it should be corrected. That piece of misinformation now becomes "common knowledge" and correcting it becomes completely impossible.
This is not idle speculation either. It's happing constantly and with thousands of entries. Wikipedia is an interesting social experiment, but it is not in any way a database of reliable facts. Unfortunately, too many people believe that it is and in the fallacy of "self-correction".:(
Ok, but we have this now withh caller ID blocking...
More worrysome is that there doesn't appear to be any way of checking that the phone number you enter is yours. There are other ways of playing phone pranks on people but Google has just made it single click convenient!
I really don't see any purpose for this whatsoever. If we need something like this, I'd rather have my browser place the call to the company directly via VOIP by clicking on an icon than have google place the call for me and "promise" not to use that information.:(
It's pretty sad that someone on/. has NO IDEA how to configure a browser. Or if you do, to convieniently ignore the fact that you can configure JS on a per site basis just to make a stupid joke.
The fact is that FF or IE users shouls have JS turned off by defualt and enabled ONLY for the few sites that they really need it for.
If we as a community really meant anything to anyone, then we'd be trying to help by disseminating real help and information and not making inane comments.
In IE, go to Tools, Internet Options, Security. Click on the "Internet" icon, click "Custom Level" and disable everything "Java" "Scripting" and "Active X".
Then go back and click on the "Trusted Sites" icon and the "Sites" button and add Google (if necessary).
There, completely safe as long as google doesn't get into the buisness of trying to hack its user's machines...
Well, except that the program hashes the content and it is impossible to get the original plain text back out of a hash. So the CC info (assuming that ever happened in the history of computers) would NOT be sent over the net! It's a 100% complete and total non-issue.
If you really want some real, usable, user feedback. Instead of asking a question designed to pat ourselves on the back, try asking the opposite question.
"Why do people not switch to Linux?"
We might not like the answers and we may not be able to puff up with pride, but it will make Linux better and it will make Linux advocacy better informed in the long run.
We all need to take a humility pill, be honest and act professional. There is far too little of that here and in Linux Advocacy at large when Microsoft or Windows is mentioned. There is a tremendous about of humility when plain old Linux vs Linux discussions take place. Extend that to Windows Vs Linux and we'll all be a lot better off.
Listen to the complaints and resist the urge to say "Read the man page.", "You're stupid" and "Fix it yourself?" Those are utterly useless and self destructive answers. Listen with an "Open" mind. Why does someone need to look at a man page to mount a FAT USB drive? (Just an example, I know it can be done automatically in newer distros) If they do, then there is something wrong with the software. Just because a 5 year Linux veterin knows how and never even thinks about it doesn't mean that 99.9% of Linux potential users will know how or should even have to!
If Microsoft has an incredibly low turnover rate of 1% a year for example, that still means that 600 people a year are "coming and going", that's 2 a day! I'd say that that means the statement of people coming and going all the time is pretty straight forward and truthful. That means that both statements could be 100% true and not conflicting in any way.
But you are right, journalists with adjendas and corporate statements will make use of whichever number looks better for their cause.
The only tragic thing is when people can't see that and assume that someone is outright lying or wrong which, at least in this example, is not the case. Both statements, sitting side by side, are perfectly truthful and neither one by itself spins anything.
That is only true for fiction. A relatively small section of your local library or book store. Hardly the "vast majority" of cases. And even then those books were published under contracts that were signed by the authors that restrict (C) freedom in nearly every case. It's no use whining about it after the contract has been signed. Be smarter later or self publish if you don't like their deals.
And of course as I said, if you have NOT sold out to a publisher, then you retain all of your rights.
Most books published are (C) the publisher, lock stock and barrel. The original authors of such books have no say in what happens to them. After a time, when sales of the material are neglighent, some authors may get their (C) back by negotiation or though the original contract.
But the bottom line is:
Sell your (C) == No say! Keep your (C) but don't self publish == Maybe or maybe not a say, depends on contract. Keep your (C) and Self publish == Do what ever the hell you want.
99.9% of all books in the libraries are not self published, therefor Google should be well aware that they cannot just copy and distribute copies of virtually every one of those books without making a deal with the publishers, period.
Of course not. Why should they? When an author signs with a publisher, they sign their work away to the publisher. Most of their work becomes pre paid and they merely become another worker, doing what they do best largely for someone else's benefit.
If an author wants to retain rights to their work then they should self publish instead of "selling out" to a publisher. Otherwise they are nothing more than work for hire. You have no rights to the source code you write when working for a company, unless your contract says otherwise, why would an author?
Author, coder, musician, it's all the same. You either keep creative control and go at it alone or you sell out for "sure" money. Once you've sold out, STFU about how your work is used, it's not your's to complain about any more.
But you said it yourself, then changed your mind half way through.
GIMP and those other applications you mention are at/best/ only Consumer/SOHO, VERY SOHO. They are NOT "On the higher end side of desktop publishing in Linux". Though maybe is seems that way because that is where the line stops and you are not really familiar with the better quality products on Windows and Mac.
Virtually all OSS Linux software falls into that category, and as such is pretty nice. Offering ok features for the low end user at an unbeatable price.
Then there are the truly professional Linux software packages for niche markets which are VERY expensive and not much use to the average person at all...
What is decidedly missing in the Linux software lineup is the middle level. The Applications (Like Photoshop) that are truly professional level but are actually affordable by the prosumer user types. Hey, if you can afford to spend 2 grand on a top end computer and another grand on a decent monitor and 2-3 grand on prosumer level photographic gear, then $599 for Photoshop is nothing.
Where is the Photoshop level graphics package for Linux that costs a few hundred bucks and delivers everything Photoshop does? I know... ask Adobe!
Such level of applications really does require some level of commercialization, something that is very hard to do on Linux for various reasons (obviously). It'll probably happen sooner or later, but after 10 years of waiting... we are still waiting. Meanwhile, most of that level of work is being done on Windows and Mac, simply because that is where the real apps are that the bulk of pro level people need.
Your list of software was nice, but honestly, only for the home user/office tinkerer...
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, talk about not Ring T Fing A.
They are replacing the wifi with ca "traditional" cabled network. Access is not being additionally restricted in anyway. Just swapping WiFi for wired.
Your out of place rant is far more troubling than the story itself...
?!?!?
DVD recorders with (and without) internal HDs are all over the place!
You can also use DVD-RW disks for recording single watch material. And the machines act exactly like VHS except record to DVD. Even the ones that allow you to hook up to a service for more ease of setup for recording don't generally REQUIRE it for it to work. I don't use it on my toshiba...
here are a few:
http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/dvd/dvdrecorder.asp
VHS is dead for any new recording that is for sure. However, everyones collections of VHS will of course sit around till it rots or 100 cups of coffie later are transferred to DVD...
BS. If Linux developers cared AT ALL it would be EASY to make linux binary compatible with itself across versions at least 5 years apart.
But when in "stable" kernel point releases I find that there have been mid struct member additions in the USB subsystem (Something you would get an F in any software engineering course) then there is NO HOPE.
The Linux development environment has ZERO care about compatibility from point version to point version or even from distro to distro and THAT is the problem.
Maybe that's the way the geeks like it but is it a user nightmare that (listening to you and others like you) is obviously going to be around forever.
Slightly behind? SP1 is 4 years old!
Name me ONE linux distro that is supporting a release that is 4 years old! You can't get support for more than 6-12 months these days!
http://www.gondolin.org.uk/hchof/machines/pet2001- 8.html
:)
It took about 8 weeks to deliver but they sent us the manual right away and I used it to learn basic and wrote 4 game programs on paper before it arrived
Being 100% Windows but with the tiniest bit of security consciousness so will we!
A networked, mirrored RAID system is nice and somewhat safer than not mirrored and all but that is still not anywhere near anything like a "backup".
:)
If you get a 1 TB mirrored RAID array going say, you will then need a third 1TB of REMOVEABLE storage to "backup" that system if you actually care about the data on it. A messy power outage, lightning strike, fire or other mishap can take out data even on the safest of RAID configurations. Your data will be MUCH safer sitting somewhere not connected to electricity or being accessed when disaster strikes.
Make backups on removeable media and then keep the media away, in a fireproof container or off-site.
In fact, if money is tight, i.e. can't afford THREE times the drive space as you really need for mirroring+backup, it is far safer to buy two sets of drives but do not RAID them, instead of mirroring use the second set of drives for your removeable backup!
SATA now allows you to use hard drives as live removeable media (as long as your SATA controller and driver actually supports it).
Then of course, remember to sync your on-line and off-line storage regularly
No, because a baking thermometer does not track progress. During baking the temp usually remains constant.
:(
However, using a visual representation of a thermometer to track the progress of a school backing sale to fund the cheerleaders trip to Washington for cheerleading finals would qualify as prior art of the concept at least.
What really stinks is how ideas that have been in use in various forms for years, decades or even centuries are suddenly now new and novel becuase they are used on a computer. The word "non-obvious" has been completey removed as a screening criteria from the patent process.
That type of patenting must be stopped and all previous such obvious patents reversed.
I find it far more ignorant that he (and ANYONE on /.) assumes evil just because they don't understand something than truly finding out what is going on. He did only the BAREST of debugging on the situation, got to a point where he thought he could cause a big stir and get his name in the headlines again.
/. just EATS IT UP is jaw droppingly disheartening.
He's a COMPLETELY irresponsible net wag, he has shown this time and time again. It's fine to bring up the question of what is going on here and to even point out the flaw. But the leap into "Microsoft coded a back door into WMF" with what little evidence he has is just jaw droppingly stupid. And the way that
Yes, there is something going on, it should be investigated. Screaming "BACK DOOR!!!!" when nothing he has presented even remotely suggests such a thing beyond self promoting fantasy is just plain... ignorant!
I didn't say it wasn't a bug, It probably is a bug, or an orphaned or stupidly repurposed piece of code, it may even be an exploit (though that has not been shown). But face it, the article was posted because of it's inflammatory crack pot conslusion, not a bug found in WMF.
And "some music player"? ANY program that has been shown to have root able flaws (Known, admitted to and patches made available mind you) does take much more precidence over foundless MS bashing any day, yes.
Well normally...
Isn't this the same Steve Gibson that was freaking out about how Raw Sockets in XP were going to destroy the world a couple of years ago?
/.?
S.G. is a flaming idiot, he looks for (and imagines) ghosts and spooks in every corner. Then flogs his conspiracy theories to promote himself and his buisness. This probably holds about as much water as the "discovery" of cold fusion and Korean human cloning.
Why aren't we reporting on REAL bugs like the 4 security vulnerabilities found in iTunes this week which opens both Windows and Mac users to external attack? Was the Microsoft bashing quota too low this week?
What is becoming of
The moderation system has been the tool that has been used here forever to lift up or silence users. Maybe it's time for editors and story submitters to play too? If it's good enough for us, then surely it's good enough for you!
Let the readers directly provide feedback via a rating system like that now imposed on other readers! Then articles could be ranked 0 to 5, Informative, Interesting, Informertial, KarmaWhoring etc...
Scarey thought isn't it? Think you could handle it?
Could not get to the linked article, but if it is the same as this one:
http://lowendmac.com/musings/05/0127.html
then that thing is positively Romper Room!
It might be amusing to have one on your desk as an amusement if you were already known as a quirky engineer, but otherwise it's just embarassing.
Hubble has had a good run, but in it's lifetime a dozen or more extremely high quality ground scopes with much more sophisticated imaging gear have been built here on earth. Using adaptive optics and imaging solutions (similar to the ones that "fixed" the hubbels blurry main mirror btw) they are even besting it for image clarity and with much larger aperatures are able to go even deeper than hubble in a shorter amount of exposure time.
Every available scope IS useful, but the Hubble has reached a point where it's maintenence is far more costly than the amount of service it is currently providing.
We whould celebrate Hubble for it's ground breaking discoveries, but not become so emotionally attached that it blinds us to it's current age, cost and other limitations.
This will only make Wikipedia even worse!
/think/ they know the fact better, but in truth don't, from completely sinking an entry with misinformation.
/. as a negative example, but the group-think and "common wisdom" that is enforced by the moderation system here is scarey at times. Modding does eliminate the bottom rung of true trolls, but it also ends up moderating down an awful lot of people with discenting opinions, no matter how factual or correct they may be.
Moderation reinforces group-think which is the Wiki's main problem to begin with.
Pretty soon you'll have a database of "facts" that conform only to how people want to perceive them. Not based on any actual validation for correctness.
"Facts" are generally known to an astonishingly small number of people. Not that there are only 5 people that know anything in the world of course. Each person in the world probably knows one fact really well. But that doesn't stop 5000 others that
Group-think already wins the day at Wiki now, but a moderation system will only make it worse. I hate to use
And how many thousands of times has bad information been corrected just to revert back to the bad information again because the original idiot contributer saw his warped world views changed?
/far/ more common.
:(
Virtually anyone that actively maintains articles has to put up with this. Real information is generally known only by a few. Belief without facts, conspiracy theories and incomplete knowledge of a subject is
It's fine for one crackpot to put up some unsupported conspiracy theory on their own web site. But Wikipedia is supposed to be a real information site, or atleast, that's what a huge number of people believe. But frequently entries contain huge amounts of misinformation, then, if said misinformationfor some reason sits well with the commons (not that they know anything about it, but they like the way it sounds) suddenly you have a false entry propigating itself forever because more people like the way it sounds better than the way it should be corrected. That piece of misinformation now becomes "common knowledge" and correcting it becomes completely impossible.
This is not idle speculation either. It's happing constantly and with thousands of entries. Wikipedia is an interesting social experiment, but it is not in any way a database of reliable facts. Unfortunately, too many people believe that it is and in the fallacy of "self-correction".
Ok, but we have this now withh caller ID blocking...
:(
More worrysome is that there doesn't appear to be any way of checking that the phone number you enter is yours. There are other ways of playing phone pranks on people but Google has just made it single click convenient!
I really don't see any purpose for this whatsoever. If we need something like this, I'd rather have my browser place the call to the company directly via VOIP by clicking on an icon than have google place the call for me and "promise" not to use that information.
It's pretty sad that someone on /. has NO IDEA how to configure a browser. Or if you do, to convieniently ignore the fact that you can configure JS on a per site basis just to make a stupid joke.
The fact is that FF or IE users shouls have JS turned off by defualt and enabled ONLY for the few sites that they really need it for.
If we as a community really meant anything to anyone, then we'd be trying to help by disseminating real help and information and not making inane comments.
In IE, go to Tools, Internet Options, Security. Click on the "Internet" icon, click "Custom Level" and disable everything "Java" "Scripting" and "Active X".
Then go back and click on the "Trusted Sites" icon and the "Sites" button and add Google (if necessary).
There, completely safe as long as google doesn't get into the buisness of trying to hack its user's machines...
Well, except that the program hashes the content and it is impossible to get the original plain text back out of a hash. So the CC info (assuming that ever happened in the history of computers) would NOT be sent over the net! It's a 100% complete and total non-issue.
If you really want some real, usable, user feedback. Instead of asking a question designed to pat ourselves on the back, try asking the opposite question.
"Why do people not switch to Linux?"
We might not like the answers and we may not be able to puff up with pride, but it will make Linux better and it will make Linux advocacy better informed in the long run.
We all need to take a humility pill, be honest and act professional. There is far too little of that here and in Linux Advocacy at large when Microsoft or Windows is mentioned. There is a tremendous about of humility when plain old Linux vs Linux discussions take place. Extend that to Windows Vs Linux and we'll all be a lot better off.
Listen to the complaints and resist the urge to say "Read the man page.", "You're stupid" and "Fix it yourself?" Those are utterly useless and self destructive answers. Listen with an "Open" mind. Why does someone need to look at a man page to mount a FAT USB drive? (Just an example, I know it can be done automatically in newer distros) If they do, then there is something wrong with the software. Just because a 5 year Linux veterin knows how and never even thinks about it doesn't mean that 99.9% of Linux potential users will know how or should even have to!
How are those statements conflicting?
If Microsoft has an incredibly low turnover rate of 1% a year for example, that still means that 600 people a year are "coming and going", that's 2 a day! I'd say that that means the statement of people coming and going all the time is pretty straight forward and truthful. That means that both statements could be 100% true and not conflicting in any way.
But you are right, journalists with adjendas and corporate statements will make use of whichever number looks better for their cause.
The only tragic thing is when people can't see that and assume that someone is outright lying or wrong which, at least in this example, is not the case. Both statements, sitting side by side, are perfectly truthful and neither one by itself spins anything.
That is only true for fiction. A relatively small section of your local library or book store. Hardly the "vast majority" of cases. And even then those books were published under contracts that were signed by the authors that restrict (C) freedom in nearly every case. It's no use whining about it after the contract has been signed. Be smarter later or self publish if you don't like their deals.
And of course as I said, if you have NOT sold out to a publisher, then you retain all of your rights.
Most books published are (C) the publisher, lock stock and barrel. The original authors of such books have no say in what happens to them. After a time, when sales of the material are neglighent, some authors may get their (C) back by negotiation or though the original contract.
But the bottom line is:
Sell your (C) == No say!
Keep your (C) but don't self publish == Maybe or maybe not a say, depends on contract.
Keep your (C) and Self publish == Do what ever the hell you want.
99.9% of all books in the libraries are not self published, therefor Google should be well aware that they cannot just copy and distribute copies of virtually every one of those books without making a deal with the publishers, period.
"Authors don't really have any say"?
Of course not. Why should they? When an author signs with a publisher, they sign their work away to the publisher. Most of their work becomes pre paid and they merely become another worker, doing what they do best largely for someone else's benefit.
If an author wants to retain rights to their work then they should self publish instead of "selling out" to a publisher. Otherwise they are nothing more than work for hire. You have no rights to the source code you write when working for a company, unless your contract says otherwise, why would an author?
Author, coder, musician, it's all the same. You either keep creative control and go at it alone or you sell out for "sure" money. Once you've sold out, STFU about how your work is used, it's not your's to complain about any more.
The fact that this comment was marked as "Flamebait" and not "Insightful" (which it is) is a condemnation of the mod system is there ever was one.
Dismantle the mod system! It promotes GroupThink and shuts out dissenting optinion!
But you said it yourself, then changed your mind half way through.
/best/ only Consumer/SOHO, VERY SOHO. They are NOT "On the higher end side of desktop publishing in Linux". Though maybe is seems that way because that is where the line stops and you are not really familiar with the better quality products on Windows and Mac.
GIMP and those other applications you mention are at
Virtually all OSS Linux software falls into that category, and as such is pretty nice. Offering ok features for the low end user at an unbeatable price.
Then there are the truly professional Linux software packages for niche markets which are VERY expensive and not much use to the average person at all...
What is decidedly missing in the Linux software lineup is the middle level. The Applications (Like Photoshop) that are truly professional level but are actually affordable by the prosumer user types. Hey, if you can afford to spend 2 grand on a top end computer and another grand on a decent monitor and 2-3 grand on prosumer level photographic gear, then $599 for Photoshop is nothing.
Where is the Photoshop level graphics package for Linux that costs a few hundred bucks and delivers everything Photoshop does? I know... ask Adobe!
Such level of applications really does require some level of commercialization, something that is very hard to do on Linux for various reasons (obviously). It'll probably happen sooner or later, but after 10 years of waiting... we are still waiting. Meanwhile, most of that level of work is being done on Windows and Mac, simply because that is where the real apps are that the bulk of pro level people need.
Your list of software was nice, but honestly, only for the home user/office tinkerer...