But Linux as a desktop environment? I would not want to try and introduce my parents to Linux as a desktop environment in the state any of the current distributions are in. Yah, getting printing working under Linux is certainly doable; install CUPS and the appropriate driver, configure it all, poke at the CUPS internal webserver if you need to check things out, etc. I'm more than willing to take the plunge on that. But I don't want to have to explain CUPS to my parents; they're used to a Windows box where they can go to Best Buy, buy a printer, plug it in, and put in a driver CD.
Replace the "put in a driver CD" step with "click the K menu, go in 'System Setting' sub-menu, click 'Printer Configuration' and answer a few simple questions", and you pretty much have my Linux experience of installing a new printer under Fedora. I know nothing about CUPS, yet I print. How come ?
But Linux as a desktop environment? I would not want to try and introduce my parents to Linux as a desktop environment in the state any of the current distributions are in. Yah, getting printing working under Linux is certainly doable; install CUPS and the appropriate driver, configure it all, poke at the CUPS internal webserver if you need to check things out, etc. I'm more than willing to take the plunge on that. But I don't want to have to explain CUPS to my parents; they're used to a Windows box where they can go to Best Buy, buy a printer, plug it in, and put in a driver CD.
Most digicam today are USB Mass Storage Device, just like your thumb drive. You do not need drivers for these. For the rest, GPhoto (now FLPhoto) come installed on just about every modern "desktop" distro and work with all the camera supported by Linux.
And for another one, let's go into security updates. Sure, Linux (and open source in general) have a much better track record than Windows of fixing security problems! That's great for sysadmins like myself, but it's not going to do a whit of good in some cases; my parents aren't going to want to stay on Bugtraq to discover that their print daemon has a remote-root exploit they'll need to download a patch for and recompile. They're used to Windows Update, where it'll find the critical updates and download them, then prompt them to install. They don't have to worry about it.
In the bottom right of my screen, a big, red flashing "!" tell me when update are available. I just click it, answer a few simple questions, then my system get updated. Just like Windows Update, except you don't have to reboot.
Also, if you want to stay informed about security update, there are better channel than Bugtraq. Most (all ?) distribution today have mailing list specifically for their security advisory.
The investment in user education is more than I want to get into; my father doesn't want to have to learn about autoconf and make, or patch and diff, or worry about watching Bugtraq or whatever.
As I demonstrated earlier, this is irrevelant anyway as Linux update does not require knowledge of these tools (if you are proficient enough to click a flashing red "!", that is). Instead, go with Windows and teach them about anti-virus, how to safely use email, spyware removal and other user-friendly concept.
I heartily agree that Linux have it's flaws and do not want to paint a too rosy picture of the situation. However, I see many armchair critics around here who make a lot of uninformed claims about the state of Linux usuability. Welcome to 2004; nobody use Slackware 3.0 anymore.
Mac OS X ships with Safari, but even my mom could figure out how to install and run Opera if she wanted to.
Users can install and run alternate applications, but we should not present them with a system with more than one software per task installed, lest they get confused ? Do you see the irony here ?
And you totally miss my point anyway. You have a conception of what "Linux" should be and how it should behave, and so do I. And the next guy. And the other one too. Now, sit all these people around and try to make them work a consensus about which browser, MUA, media player, etc should be the official Linux one. Then complain nothing get done.
The job of choosing default application for various task is already covered quite nicely by distributors. I don't see why some comittee should be in charge of deciding what is best for people to use as a web browser. That's pretty retarded.
many cpu intensive apps benefit greatly from being compiled from source, openssl for instance, and john the ripper for one..
Please quantify the performance gain, and then we'll talk.
Also, OpenSSL and John The Ripper are not really useful to most people. The test would need to be done on Web browser, IM client and word processor to be of any revelance to most desktop users.
The key is, to make compiling programs easier.. portage and ports already go a very long way towards this, and as computers become faster so compilation times will decrease
Indeed, and I applaude the initiative for those who actually care about compiling software. But the post I was responding was advocating Gentoo to everybody, for everything. I do not think most newbies and desktop users (the subject of this discussion, I remind you) would be thrilled to look at cryptic compiler output and wait for the build to finish* just for an unnoticeable performance gain or a reduction of a few Kb in executable file size. Even if compilation is getting faster, it will always be slower than installing pre-compiled binaries and people probably have better thing to do with their time.
*: I compiled LyX on a Duron 800 recently... the thing took 1.5 hours to compile. Give me a binary package anyday.
The solution is to stop putting out distributions that have packages for everything under the sun, often times with dozens of ways to do the same thing. It's about time we all picked a browser, just one, and ran with it. Yeah, a system should have multiple browsers available, but there should be one "official" Linux browser.
Which one ? Who will decide ? What if I disagree ?
Most people like developing for linux as a hobby, or for fun. Rarely is it for money.
False. Most of the code going in OSS project are being written by paid programmer. Most are working for Linux distributors or a large integrator (ie IBM), some are employed in the academics, a few are being sponsored by various foundation and the rest is mostly being done by paid employee working on software useful for their employer.
The more writers/language focused people that get interested in linux, the more possibility there will be for better walkthrough type documentation.
IMHO, if people where interested in reading documentation, it would get written. In practice, most people (especially newbies) don't want to read. So why bother with writing and keeping up-to-date a good set of introductory documents if nobody is interested in reading them ? This si a chicken and egg situation.
Face it - computers are fast becoming commodities. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a computer to be as easy to use as a toaster or Microwave.
Does piloting a 747 have to be as easy as driving a scooter ? If not, why does using a computer have to be as easy as using a toaster ?
Expecting a tool as flexible and complex as a computer to be as easy as a fixed-function primitive appliance like a toaster is a pipe dream. You are comparing apple to orange here.
I would also like to remind you that I (like most people) don't know how to use most of the features of my microwave; microwave are not example of entirely intuitive appliance. So if most people can't be bothered to set the time correctly on their microwave without refering to a manual, how should they be able to use a computer without refering to one either ?
Installer exist in Linux too. Just look at Enemy Territory, Unreal, the Sun JDK and just about every proprietary software out there. They are not used with OSS, as it is much better to make a package and/or use a distribution with package manager in the first place.
One of the problem you will encounter is that these software will need to be installed as root. Various distro have various mechanism to run the GUI installer app as root, but user will ultimately have to understand the concept of privileges (while in Windows, they just use an account with administrative privilege for day-to-day task, security be damned).
At this point, what we really need is an easy (ie GUI) way to add software repository to package manager. Mandrake Control Center have one, but it's a bit flaky (as many thing with Mandrake...). AFAIK, there is none for yum and apt.
I will not comment on the total irrevelance of your complaint regarding package and dependence, as other have already done so. Welcome to 2003 and use the tools provided.
RPM and deb files are completely useless when these two systems are here to replace them. I would only tell people to install Gentoo for linux.
My guess is that you are trolling, but in case you don't, I will kindly point you to urpm/rpmdrake, apt-get (+/- Synaptic), up2date, yum and all the other package manager that do exactly the same job as emerge and the port collection... minus the insistance of compiling from source (which is a waste of time and a turn off for newbie).
deb and rpm are package format, not package manager, btw. Complaining about package being distributed in rpm or deb is like complaining about source being in tar.gz... completely irrevelant.
Hopefully, you help the people you recommend Gentoo to configure emerge to fetch pre-compiled software. I'd hate to meet a newbie and be told "Well, Linux is nice but I got back to Windows since software is sooooo long to install!".
Check the Ars Technica A/V Club FAQ at http://faq.arstechnica.com/?i=19. From what I can gather there, some (most ?) laptop LCD screen use a standard called LVDS. There are video card around that sport such an interface; from my Googling, there are a few GeForce 4 MX cheapo board that have it. I suppose one would have to build the cable connecting the card to the LCD though, as the LCD probably have some sort of proprietary connector.
Not sure if this true, revelant or even possible, so YMMV. Never did it myself (lack of time), but it a project I had been looking into myself so I share what I have gathered so far.
Btw, 486-586 era laptops make kick-ass x86 firewalls. Energy consumption is a lot better then a desktop, and they tend to be compact, with a built-in keyboard and video. 2 PCMCIA/Cardbus NICs and you're set.
I don't think any 486 (or even Pentium < II) laptop ever came equipped with CardBus slot.
The whole point of hardware accelerated GUIs are that they save CPU cycles by offlaoding GUI rendering to the graphics card, hardware designed for rendering graphics.
What is pretty ironic, IMHO, is that when Longhorn will actually ship, hardware-accelerated rendering of GUI will probably be a moot point. Right now, I am running KDE 3.2 on a pretty standard machine (P4 2.8, 256 MB RAM, cheap onboard VGA) with all the eye candy turned on, and I can't see how the interface could be any snappier. According to Moore's Law, we can extrapolate that CPU in the 4 to 5 Ghx range with > 1 GB of RAM will be standard in 2006 (the year Longhorn is supposed to come out). Will hardware-accelerated GUI rendering make any difference then ? It sure won't hurt but I don't think it will make a noticeable difference.
Was I bashing Windows at all ? Sorry, I did not feel so. Actually, if something, I guess my question about use of SVG in Longhorn could be considered a compliment, as such a feature is quite desirable.
I don't use Windows. I am not really interested in Windows. I don't bash Windows either, it just leave indifferent. Plenty of interesting thing happen with software I actually use and care about, and I have a hard time keeping up. Why should I take interest and spend some of my precious little time getting informed about a product I will most probably never use and care very little about ? And one, above all, that is still two years away from going mainstream (if the current schedule hold, that is) ?
Also, between now and the date of release, a lot of things could change. So as far as I am concerned, it _is_ vaporware.
I was under the impression that Longhorn would be using vector graphical extensively in its UI. Mind you, I don't follow Microsoft hype very closely so I may well be totally wrong.
AFAIK, Gnome and KDE are both going toward SVG vector graphic for icons/UI elements (correct me if I am wrong). Building a UI on bitmap graphic in 2004 seem quite retarded to me.
IE's transparency support for PNGs is definitely screwed up. I made a
transparent PNG and it looks absolutely beautiful in Mozilla, Safari, Opera, Camino, etc. Load it in IE and it's a light gray background... Damn, can't they do anything right? Now I've got to "fix" it since 90% of the people use IE so they'll think it's broke.
If you need a PNG with a fully transparent color (just like GIF), IE have no problem supporting it, as long as your PNG is indexed (aka PNG8). If you need partial transparency (aka alpha channel), then yes IE is broke.
To index a PNG in The Gimp 2.x, choose "Mode" -> "Indexed" in the Image menu.
There's even nothing wrong wth talking a significant pay-cut, if that's required. If your wife is worth keeping, she'll realize that the two of you can't (easily) maintain a big-city lifestyle in a rural area.
You may also want to take into account the fact that housing cost in rural area is often much lower, which in turn cut down your living expense. If you are one of those who pay an insane 500K$ mortgage to live in CA or NYC, this may make a world of difference.
No prob. I just thought it would be a good idea to shime in as I am currently fighting such an issue with Horde/IMP. Some mail sent from Eudora (older version, I think) don't encode headers properly. Thus, when a subject contain accented characters (in my case, ISO-8859-1), the mail summary is full of ??? as the browser asked for UTF-* but received some part in ISO-8859-1 (and IMP can't do nothing about it as it doe snot know the source charset).
ut a truly compatible webmail system would look at the headers, detect the type of encoding (i.e. EUC, ISO-1022), and set the HTML headers to
make the browser switch to the proper coding, so it displays properly instead of showing mojibake.
More precisely, convert the text from the charset the email is stored in to the one negociated with the web browser (most likely, UTF8). The problem is that some mail client *cough*Eudora*cough* may not specify a correct charset for the body, or fail to encode headers (ie Subject:) correctly. This make your webmail unable to make a meaningful conversion (it don't know the source charset), so your web browser end up showing a lot of ? instead of 8- and 16-bits characters.
The installed base of C/C++ application is so huge, it will never die. KDE is written almost entirely in C++. The whole GNU suite. XFree86. Apache, Samba, every major MTA that I know of. Rewriting all these software in a type/memory safe language is an impossible task for the OSS community to achieve in the near- or mid-term. Unfortunately, we will have to continue to live with the deficiency of C for a long time to come : buffer/stack overflow, memory leak, segmentation fault and cie.
Right now, I would bet that 90% (yes, this statistic is coming out of my ass) of bugs and security advisory for software I use are directly related to the deficiency of C and C++. I, for one, will cheer the day that C/C++ will stop being used for daemon and user application (operating system is another story) as this will cut down seriously the number of update I will have to apply. Good riddance !
The drivers are free, but if a competitor got their hands on the code,
they can use that development and "stand on the shoulders of giants" and further their own products enough to play Intel's game.
Slashdot Mirror
Replace the "put in a driver CD" step with "click the K menu, go in 'System Setting' sub-menu, click 'Printer Configuration' and answer a few simple questions", and you pretty much have my Linux experience of installing a new printer under Fedora. I know nothing about CUPS, yet I print. How come ?
Most digicam today are USB Mass Storage Device, just like your thumb drive. You do not need drivers for these. For the rest, GPhoto (now FLPhoto) come installed on just about every modern "desktop" distro and work with all the camera supported by Linux.
In the bottom right of my screen, a big, red flashing "!" tell me when update are available. I just click it, answer a few simple questions, then my system get updated. Just like Windows Update, except you don't have to reboot.
Also, if you want to stay informed about security update, there are better channel than Bugtraq. Most (all ?) distribution today have mailing list specifically for their security advisory.
As I demonstrated earlier, this is irrevelant anyway as Linux update does not require knowledge of these tools (if you are proficient enough to click a flashing red "!", that is). Instead, go with Windows and teach them about anti-virus, how to safely use email, spyware removal and other user-friendly concept.
I heartily agree that Linux have it's flaws and do not want to paint a too rosy picture of the situation. However, I see many armchair critics around here who make a lot of uninformed claims about the state of Linux usuability. Welcome to 2004; nobody use Slackware 3.0 anymore.
... to see his IRC log of #debian.
Users can install and run alternate applications, but we should not present them with a system with more than one software per task installed, lest they get confused ? Do you see the irony here ?
And you totally miss my point anyway. You have a conception of what "Linux" should be and how it should behave, and so do I. And the next guy. And the other one too. Now, sit all these people around and try to make them work a consensus about which browser, MUA, media player, etc should be the official Linux one. Then complain nothing get done.
The job of choosing default application for various task is already covered quite nicely by distributors. I don't see why some comittee should be in charge of deciding what is best for people to use as a web browser. That's pretty retarded.
Please quantify the performance gain, and then we'll talk.
Also, OpenSSL and John The Ripper are not really useful to most people. The test would need to be done on Web browser, IM client and word processor to be of any revelance to most desktop users.
Indeed, and I applaude the initiative for those who actually care about compiling software. But the post I was responding was advocating Gentoo to everybody, for everything. I do not think most newbies and desktop users (the subject of this discussion, I remind you) would be thrilled to look at cryptic compiler output and wait for the build to finish* just for an unnoticeable performance gain or a reduction of a few Kb in executable file size. Even if compilation is getting faster, it will always be slower than installing pre-compiled binaries and people probably have better thing to do with their time.
*: I compiled LyX on a Duron 800 recently ... the thing took 1.5 hours to compile. Give me a binary package anyday.
Which one ? Who will decide ? What if I disagree ?
False. Most of the code going in OSS project are being written by paid programmer. Most are working for Linux distributors or a large integrator (ie IBM), some are employed in the academics, a few are being sponsored by various foundation and the rest is mostly being done by paid employee working on software useful for their employer.
IMHO, if people where interested in reading documentation, it would get written. In practice, most people (especially newbies) don't want to read. So why bother with writing and keeping up-to-date a good set of introductory documents if nobody is interested in reading them ? This si a chicken and egg situation.
Does piloting a 747 have to be as easy as driving a scooter ? If not, why does using a computer have to be as easy as using a toaster ?
Expecting a tool as flexible and complex as a computer to be as easy as a fixed-function primitive appliance like a toaster is a pipe dream. You are comparing apple to orange here.
I would also like to remind you that I (like most people) don't know how to use most of the features of my microwave; microwave are not example of entirely intuitive appliance. So if most people can't be bothered to set the time correctly on their microwave without refering to a manual, how should they be able to use a computer without refering to one either ?
Installer exist in Linux too. Just look at Enemy Territory, Unreal, the Sun JDK and just about every proprietary software out there. They are not used with OSS, as it is much better to make a package and/or use a distribution with package manager in the first place.
...). AFAIK, there is none for yum and apt.
One of the problem you will encounter is that these software will need to be installed as root. Various distro have various mechanism to run the GUI installer app as root, but user will ultimately have to understand the concept of privileges (while in Windows, they just use an account with administrative privilege for day-to-day task, security be damned).
At this point, what we really need is an easy (ie GUI) way to add software repository to package manager. Mandrake Control Center have one, but it's a bit flaky (as many thing with Mandrake
I will not comment on the total irrevelance of your complaint regarding package and dependence, as other have already done so. Welcome to 2003 and use the tools provided.
My guess is that you are trolling, but in case you don't, I will kindly point you to urpm/rpmdrake, apt-get (+/- Synaptic), up2date, yum and all the other package manager that do exactly the same job as emerge and the port collection ... minus the insistance of compiling from source (which is a waste of time and a turn off for newbie).
deb and rpm are package format, not package manager, btw. Complaining about package being distributed in rpm or deb is like complaining about source being in tar.gz ... completely irrevelant.
Hopefully, you help the people you recommend Gentoo to configure emerge to fetch pre-compiled software. I'd hate to meet a newbie and be told "Well, Linux is nice but I got back to Windows since software is sooooo long to install!".
Yes, but is it CardBus (32 bits) ?
PCMCIA != CardBus
Google turned this up : http://www.eio.com/public/lcd/
Check the Ars Technica A/V Club FAQ at http://faq.arstechnica.com/?i=19. From what I can gather there, some (most ?) laptop LCD screen use a standard called LVDS. There are video card around that sport such an interface; from my Googling, there are a few GeForce 4 MX cheapo board that have it. I suppose one would have to build the cable connecting the card to the LCD though, as the LCD probably have some sort of proprietary connector.
Not sure if this true, revelant or even possible, so YMMV. Never did it myself (lack of time), but it a project I had been looking into myself so I share what I have gathered so far.
I don't think any 486 (or even Pentium < II) laptop ever came equipped with CardBus slot.
Are they profitables ?
I wish they are.
I could definitely have used hardware-accelerated GUI back in 1996, when I was using a P133 with 32 MB of RAM. Sadly, the technology is 10 years late.
What is pretty ironic, IMHO, is that when Longhorn will actually ship, hardware-accelerated rendering of GUI will probably be a moot point. Right now, I am running KDE 3.2 on a pretty standard machine (P4 2.8, 256 MB RAM, cheap onboard VGA) with all the eye candy turned on, and I can't see how the interface could be any snappier. According to Moore's Law, we can extrapolate that CPU in the 4 to 5 Ghx range with > 1 GB of RAM will be standard in 2006 (the year Longhorn is supposed to come out). Will hardware-accelerated GUI rendering make any difference then ? It sure won't hurt but I don't think it will make a noticeable difference.
Was I bashing Windows at all ? Sorry, I did not feel so. Actually, if something, I guess my question about use of SVG in Longhorn could be considered a compliment, as such a feature is quite desirable.
I don't use Windows. I am not really interested in Windows. I don't bash Windows either, it just leave indifferent. Plenty of interesting thing happen with software I actually use and care about, and I have a hard time keeping up. Why should I take interest and spend some of my precious little time getting informed about a product I will most probably never use and care very little about ? And one, above all, that is still two years away from going mainstream (if the current schedule hold, that is) ?
Also, between now and the date of release, a lot of things could change. So as far as I am concerned, it _is_ vaporware.
I was under the impression that Longhorn would be using vector graphical extensively in its UI. Mind you, I don't follow Microsoft hype very closely so I may well be totally wrong.
AFAIK, Gnome and KDE are both going toward SVG vector graphic for icons/UI elements (correct me if I am wrong). Building a UI on bitmap graphic in 2004 seem quite retarded to me.
If you need a PNG with a fully transparent color (just like GIF), IE have no problem supporting it, as long as your PNG is indexed (aka PNG8). If you need partial transparency (aka alpha channel), then yes IE is broke.
To index a PNG in The Gimp 2.x, choose "Mode" -> "Indexed" in the Image menu.
This is going to happen the day /. start using PNG instead of GIF, that is most probably never.
This site design had been frozen in 1997.
You may also want to take into account the fact that housing cost in rural area is often much lower, which in turn cut down your living expense. If you are one of those who pay an insane 500K$ mortgage to live in CA or NYC, this may make a world of difference.
No prob. I just thought it would be a good idea to shime in as I am currently fighting such an issue with Horde/IMP. Some mail sent from Eudora (older version, I think) don't encode headers properly. Thus, when a subject contain accented characters (in my case, ISO-8859-1), the mail summary is full of ??? as the browser asked for UTF-* but received some part in ISO-8859-1 (and IMP can't do nothing about it as it doe snot know the source charset).
More precisely, convert the text from the charset the email is stored in to the one negociated with the web browser (most likely, UTF8). The problem is that some mail client *cough*Eudora*cough* may not specify a correct charset for the body, or fail to encode headers (ie Subject:) correctly. This make your webmail unable to make a meaningful conversion (it don't know the source charset), so your web browser end up showing a lot of ? instead of 8- and 16-bits characters.
The installed base of C/C++ application is so huge, it will never die. KDE is written almost entirely in C++. The whole GNU suite. XFree86. Apache, Samba, every major MTA that I know of. Rewriting all these software in a type/memory safe language is an impossible task for the OSS community to achieve in the near- or mid-term. Unfortunately, we will have to continue to live with the deficiency of C for a long time to come : buffer/stack overflow, memory leak, segmentation fault and cie.
Right now, I would bet that 90% (yes, this statistic is coming out of my ass) of bugs and security advisory for software I use are directly related to the deficiency of C and C++. I, for one, will cheer the day that C/C++ will stop being used for daemon and user application (operating system is another story) as this will cut down seriously the number of update I will have to apply. Good riddance !
How ?