The author's mention of TurboTax is interesting. My wife is an accountant in the States, so she needs TurboTax. Until she can run this on Linux, she must have Windows available. And, unfortunately (like the author mentioned) it's not likely we're going to see `gnutax' or anything like it in the near future, because of the ridiculous amount of legal crap which must go into tax prep software.
I refuse to have proprietary software on my machines (not only for ideological reasons, either--proprietary stuff just mucks up the system), but I cannot totally eliminate Redmond from my household until there is a way for an accountant to do TurboTax on Linux.
I am certain that other professions face similar dilemmas. I am optimistic, however, that once businesses without such special requirements (i.e., they just need an office suite, e-mail, and browser) use Linux widely, the vendors of these packages will feel pressure to port them to Linux--much like vendors of Mac-only software often bowed to pressure to port to Windows.
And considering that my fiance just had to buy a brand new scanner to replace her three year-old one because the manufacturer said that they were not going to support Windows XP, I'm just now sure how you can say that XP supports more hardware than Linux.
This is a very important point, octothorpe. I am much more concerned about still being able to use good hardware years down the road than about getting the newest bells-and-whistles video card to work. With Linux (or OSS generally), once something is supported, it's unlikely to become unsupported for many, many years. You can still run Debian Sarge on a 386, for cryin' out loud. (Not that I've tried, but it's theoretically possible.)
I just picked up a second-hand Dell laptop (P-II era) which would be suffering horribly if I tried to put XP on it. Running Debian, however, it's happy as a clam -- and so am I.
The best tool for working around censorship is the photocopier....running off a thousand copies of something and passing them around clandestinely will work as well today as it did in the 1700's.
Um, I didn't think they had photocopiers in the eighteenth century.
In other words, it is not marketable any more(i.e., no one really needs it).
"not marketable" != "no one really needs it"
Just because PHBs cannot be sold on something does not mean there is no need for it. In the US (we have no national health care here) good private health insurance is something the proles desperately need, but that does not mean that the execs will buy it for them.
For that matter, the whole idea that the market will determine what is best is dependant on perfect information. When the purchaser's information is imperfect (i.e., based on marketing and not on true cost/benefit data) then the market will not serve the purchaser's needs.
DOS -- Dies On Save (At least it always seemed to for me:( ).
God help you if you needed to save an important document to a network drive on a DOS box. A little network glitch and you've got a locked-up box (with your data permanently and unretrievably in RAM) and nothing to be done about it. My university had diskless PCs (286s?) from which we were supposed to save to AFS back then . . . I lost many, many hours of work . ..
I especially like Windows XP in this regard.. the _professional_ edition, alledgedly for business use, comes complete with "MSN Gaming Zone".. and all the files in it are covered by Windows File Protection, so you can't delete them easily.
Wait a minute. Let me get this straight: XP prevents you as root (or whatever they call root now) from deleting files from your system?
I haven't used Windows since NT4, so I may be out of touch, but that seems idiotic even for Redmond.
What exactly is this ``Windows File Protection'' business?
Offhand, I'd say TAPI, which is the ability to write one telecommunications program (like a phone answering machine or touch-tone interface) and have it work with all voice modems off the shelf without any customization or kernel-recompiling whatsoever. It just works. Try that on Linux - you find plenty that will work with a specific line, like only USR's, but never with any old modem I pick up from the store.
Offhand, I'd say that's because there are Windows drivers for all the crippled modems (`winmodems') on the market, while there aren't for Linux. I'd expect most real hardware modems to `Just Work'.
Now lets say you go to sourceforge, and get the same thing. ok, you saved $50. Oh but wait there is only a source version, I have to compile it. Doh. There is a dependency issue. I have to go find some library on the net. Ok found it. Doh. It wont work/compile with XP/Gcc Version whatever.
Or you just use Debian: apt-get install foo
For things like basic file utils, it really is as easy as that. Arguing that it's some kind of huge effort to install a new prog in Linux is either FUD or evidence that one hasn't ever used a decent distro. This isn't 1996.
That works great, as long as someone out there has decided to put some time into making "foo" work with apt-get and maintaining it on a permanent basis. The problem is that this is a lot of work, and in many cases, nobody has volunteered.
In my experience as a desktop Linux user, installing applications is indeed the number-one problem. . ..
In most cases, Free (and quite a lot of non-Free) software is available packaged for Debian. Certainly all your standard Linux desktop and server packages are (more than 8710 in Woody [stable] according to www.debian.org). If it's not packaged, it's probably either brand new, obscure and complicated (e.g., GRASS GIS software), or illegal to package (lame etc.).
Seriously, what packages have you had trouble installing in Debian? The whole point of apt is that it keeps track of dependencies and shared libraries, so you shouldn't have any trouble with such things.
In my experience, for desktop stuff it really is as easy as apt-get install foo.
What i am looking for is some better easier way of installing comercial software.
Oh. I assume you mean proprietary, binary-only software by `commercial'. I find the solution is generally not to run such software on general-purpose systems. With OpenOffice, Mozilla, Xmms, and a wide variety of e-mail programs, your standard home/office uses need no proprietary software.
Yes, the process is incomplete. I didn't think the subject was really imporant enough to write an essay on the status of metrification in all facets of British life and commerce.
And yes, last time I checked (in London briefly in August 2000) they still drive on the left, too.
This is more than an understatement. We've been trying to make the metric system switch for more than 20 years and we're still only inches off the starting line.
I assume you're writing from the U.S., because the U.K. has finally gone metric (at least officially -- there was a
grocer
prosecuted and convicted last year for selling fruit by Imperial measure).
The U.S. was going metric in the 1970s, but Reagan in 1982 disbanded the metrification board and halted the process. We were more advanced twenty years ago than now.
"Every desktop OS has at one time or another a compatibility layer to ease users over to its use. Mac OS X has one for old OS 9.2 apps"
Yea so what's your point? These compatibility layers were for running apps from the previous OS, NOT apps from an entirely different OS! OS 9.2 couldn't run windows apps, and Win 3.1 couldn't run Mac apps. We already have an OS that can run all of the windows apps, it called Windows.
MacOS 9 is not an earlier version of OS X, it's an entirely different OS. OS 9 and OS X are about as similar as OS 9 and MandrakePPC. (Calling OS X `ten' is just Apple marketing's attempt at not scaring off old Mac users.)
That having been said, you are quite right that native apps are more important than running WinCrap under Linux. I'll pick a native OpenOffice over MS Office 2007 XQ any day:)
While I have to agree with trueaveragejoe's sentiment, I'm really perplexed as to what this has to do with OP (`RH8 is slick'). It seems a bit OT more than `+5 Insightful'.
From now on, big corporation marketing rules over popular choice. take this as a example: http://www.google.com/search?q=correo+gratis "correo gratis" is spanish for "free mail". Hotmail was #1. Now, at www2, is nowhere to be found. Hotmail is pagerank 9, and hundreds of spanish web pages where pointing at it as "correo gratis". Now is not, but is still #1 if you look for "free mail". Why? joe doe pages dont count, hundres of spanish users linking at it dont count any more. Only the "official", msn network pages count now, plus the few Dmoz pages pointing at it using that text as links. Most of those pages happen to be English Only, so only the english version of the query survives.
This doesn't make sense. The current top result on a
search for `correo gratis' is LatinMail - Tu Correo Gratuito En Español. It seems to me that the listings have gotten more accurate, not less, if my search in Spanish for free mail returns a Spanish company instead of a Yankee one (Hotmail is Microsoft, in case you weren't aware). LatinMail belongs to eresMas, who are headquartered in Madrid.
Sorry, but I don't know too many non-geeks who have a need for an ssh/telnet client.
We have a few (non-geek) faculty who telnet to Solaris boxes to use Pine for e-mail. They've been doing it since that was the only thing the IT dept. supported, and it still works for them. (Oh, and they can't get Outlook viruses;^) A history professor is typically the farthest you'll get from a computer geek.
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The author's mention of TurboTax is interesting. My wife is an accountant in the States, so she needs TurboTax. Until she can run this on Linux, she must have Windows available. And, unfortunately (like the author mentioned) it's not likely we're going to see `gnutax' or anything like it in the near future, because of the ridiculous amount of legal crap which must go into tax prep software.
I refuse to have proprietary software on my machines (not only for ideological reasons, either--proprietary stuff just mucks up the system), but I cannot totally eliminate Redmond from my household until there is a way for an accountant to do TurboTax on Linux.
I am certain that other professions face similar dilemmas. I am optimistic, however, that once businesses without such special requirements (i.e., they just need an office suite, e-mail, and browser) use Linux widely, the vendors of these packages will feel pressure to port them to Linux--much like vendors of Mac-only software often bowed to pressure to port to Windows.
Or so I hope.
quoth octothorpe:
This is a very important point, octothorpe. I am much more concerned about still being able to use good hardware years down the road than about getting the newest bells-and-whistles video card to work. With Linux (or OSS generally), once something is supported, it's unlikely to become unsupported for many, many years. You can still run Debian Sarge on a 386, for cryin' out loud. (Not that I've tried, but it's theoretically possible.)
I just picked up a second-hand Dell laptop (P-II era) which would be suffering horribly if I tried to put XP on it. Running Debian, however, it's happy as a clam -- and so am I.
scripsit Twirlip of the Mists:
Um, I didn't think they had photocopiers in the eighteenth century.
scripsit master_p:
"not marketable" != "no one really needs it"
Just because PHBs cannot be sold on something does not mean there is no need for it. In the US (we have no national health care here) good private health insurance is something the proles desperately need, but that does not mean that the execs will buy it for them.
For that matter, the whole idea that the market will determine what is best is dependant on perfect information. When the purchaser's information is imperfect (i.e., based on marketing and not on true cost/benefit data) then the market will not serve the purchaser's needs.
scripsit 1010011010:
Hey, no worries ;) I'm still on 1.0 too (along with the rest of the Debian world). 1.1 is in unstable now, though, so it's coming.
scripsit 1010011010:
Mozilla should support this, as it is valid CSS2 (see the CSS2 spec). Have you filed a bug against it?
scripsit mithras:
No, one needn't admit that, any more than one must admit that AIX is a very, very bad window system.
scripsit Mr. Sketch:
God help you if you needed to save an important document to a network drive on a DOS box. A little network glitch and you've got a locked-up box (with your data permanently and unretrievably in RAM) and nothing to be done about it. My university had diskless PCs (286s?) from which we were supposed to save to AFS back then . . . I lost many, many hours of work . . .
scripsit damiam:
Sounds like what it's meant to do is to scare you into thinking MSN Gaming Zone is just as critical to your system as kernel32.dll. FUD.
scripsit Large Green Mallard:
Wait a minute. Let me get this straight: XP prevents you as root (or whatever they call root now) from deleting files from your system?
I haven't used Windows since NT4, so I may be out of touch, but that seems idiotic even for Redmond.
What exactly is this ``Windows File Protection'' business?
scripsit Brento:
Offhand, I'd say that's because there are Windows drivers for all the crippled modems (`winmodems') on the market, while there aren't for Linux. I'd expect most real hardware modems to `Just Work'.
Kevin Stevens wrote:
Or you just use Debian: apt-get install foo
For things like basic file utils, it really is as easy as that. Arguing that it's some kind of huge effort to install a new prog in Linux is either FUD or evidence that one hasn't ever used a decent distro. This isn't 1996.
There are many who are compelled to use it by the suits. It's not always the user's fault.
bcrowell wrote:
In most cases, Free (and quite a lot of non-Free) software is available packaged for Debian. Certainly all your standard Linux desktop and server packages are (more than 8710 in Woody [stable] according to www.debian.org). If it's not packaged, it's probably either brand new, obscure and complicated (e.g., GRASS GIS software), or illegal to package (lame etc.).
Seriously, what packages have you had trouble installing in Debian? The whole point of apt is that it keeps track of dependencies and shared libraries, so you shouldn't have any trouble with such things. In my experience, for desktop stuff it really is as easy as apt-get install foo.
miffo.swe wrote:
Oh. I assume you mean proprietary, binary-only software by `commercial'. I find the solution is generally not to run such software on general-purpose systems. With OpenOffice, Mozilla, Xmms, and a wide variety of e-mail programs, your standard home/office uses need no proprietary software.
crath wrote:
Yes, the process is incomplete. I didn't think the subject was really imporant enough to write an essay on the status of metrification in all facets of British life and commerce.
And yes, last time I checked (in London briefly in August 2000) they still drive on the left, too.
Ah, my fault. I forgot to change my threshold and didn't see linuck's rant as parent. Just ignore me ;)
crath wrote:
I assume you're writing from the U.S., because the U.K. has finally gone metric (at least officially -- there was a grocer prosecuted and convicted last year for selling fruit by Imperial measure).
The U.S. was going metric in the 1970s, but Reagan in 1982 disbanded the metrification board and halted the process. We were more advanced twenty years ago than now.
miffo.swe wrote:
Try this:
It doesn't get any easier than that, my friend. The problem isn't Linux -- Debian has had apt for a long time -- it's the other distros.
bogie wrote:
MacOS 9 is not an earlier version of OS X, it's an entirely different OS. OS 9 and OS X are about as similar as OS 9 and MandrakePPC. (Calling OS X `ten' is just Apple marketing's attempt at not scaring off old Mac users.)
That having been said, you are quite right that native apps are more important than running WinCrap under Linux. I'll pick a native OpenOffice over MS Office 2007 XQ any day :)
trueaveragejoe wrote:
While I have to agree with trueaveragejoe's sentiment, I'm really perplexed as to what this has to do with OP (`RH8 is slick'). It seems a bit OT more than `+5 Insightful'.
Please feel free to enlighten me . . .
CanadaDave wrote:
``Not quite free'' in the same way as Faust's success came ``not quite free.''
registro wrote:
This doesn't make sense. The current top result on a search for `correo gratis' is LatinMail - Tu Correo Gratuito En Español. It seems to me that the listings have gotten more accurate, not less, if my search in Spanish for free mail returns a Spanish company instead of a Yankee one (Hotmail is Microsoft, in case you weren't aware). LatinMail belongs to eresMas, who are headquartered in Madrid.
dotgod wrote:
We have a few (non-geek) faculty who telnet to Solaris boxes to use Pine for e-mail. They've been doing it since that was the only thing the IT dept. supported, and it still works for them. (Oh, and they can't get Outlook viruses ;^) A history professor is typically the farthest you'll get from a computer geek.