Bullshit, they'd never ever get (successfully) sued.
If we are talking America, the only reason they would not succesfully be sued is because they will most likely have more money. Otherwise it would be far from the strangest case won...
If graphics people start out on the gimp instead of photoshop they will be just as good on that.
No, no, no, no, no, just plain wrong. I'm a programmer also, and definetely not a graphics artist. I tried the GIMP first, and well, I could just not wrap my head around it - with PS (and ImageReady) I could do "cool" montages, animated banners, manipulate photos, whatever, byu just playing around a little and selecting what seemed logical. Trying to guess in the GIMP is about as succesful as trying to guess lottery numbers. Maybe it makes sense to someone that knows graphics, but it sure as hell makes no sense to the average Joe. Whereas PS apparently do.
Just get new people who are about to pirate photoshop for the first time to use gimp instead.
I did just that, for myself: I tried GIMP first. I tried it thouroghly, for quite some time. It sucked ass. Now what?
Interesting... I do use arts (though I've tried without it also), and nothing else seems to have any trouble with it. Maybe video is special in that regard...
I don't know if I have cheap hardware;-) but most applications have trouble sharing the sound card if I try to go without it, while most things support arts or can be run via artsdsp in the worst case scenario. Of course, if you only want/need one source at the time, arts is just so much extra baggage. I could try manipulating the buffers and give it an extra try completely without though, good call.
I have the AC97 (I think) on motherboard card - good call on this one I suppose, although it is said to be supported, it might not be completely. I do have an extra card lying somewhere, gonna try using that instead I guess. It works just fine for anything else though (like I said), but maybe it is extra straining this.
Good and plausible tips, thanks!
(Still, one should not need to ask on slashdot to get this working...;-)
Of course, had you read MPlayer's documentation, you would have seen this: + and - : adjust audio delay by +/- 0.1 second
If you had read my post, you would have seen that I actually appreciate that function, *and* that I've also set a default value for this that is more correct than letting mplayer decide.
My problem is that I need to do this - that I need to time most movies by hand. Every time. It is pretty hard getting it just right, it is *really* boring and not a good advertisment for Linux - people coming over just ask me to boot over instead - and that might actually be faster then trying to get it "just right".
Sure, you can say that those movies have problems with their encoding or whatever, but then how come that all media players under Windows on the same machine gets it right without any problems whatsoever (and with no need to build any indexes). Media player, Classic, Zoom Player, Real (YUCK), you name them, they have no problems whatsoever, while mplayer almost always has them.
I don't think an AMD 1800 with >600MB should have any troubles here (and it do4esn't under Windows).
I've tried *all* combinations of -ao and -vo, or close enough as matters not, and a lot of other commandline trickery suggested all over the net.
This is my last bastion for Linux, I am working hard to try solving it, so please no stupid accusations of not reading the manual. By the way, that manual is friggin HUGE and takes half a day to read;-) while I never need any manuals for the Winplayers.
I will however look at those alternatives mentioned (if they are based on xine/mplayer though I have little hopes). Thanks for the tips!
I have no (big) problems with doing almost all things on Linux nowadays, expect playing media. There are lots of maybe not as good, but very much good enough tools for just about everything else, be it spreadsheets or coding or whatever.
Playing music is ok, I mean it sounds like it should, but no prgrams there has a good interface. XMMS passes barely, so I live with it. The others truly and utterly suck especially when it comes to playlist handling or has some other issue (zinf doesn't support artsd, noatun hangs the system at times, and I mean "need for reset button" hangs, e etc).
Movies are another story, I've tried and read up on mplayer, xine and tried at least 10 different frontends for both - finally settling on mplayer, since if it can't be as good and easy as zoom player or media player classic, at least it can be clean and efficient - and I kinda like it. However, it has lots and lots of issues (as does xine and the others) with sound and performance... but the big dirty one that is the real showstopper is the fact that almost all movies comes with laggy sound! I even have delay 0.5 in my startup file now, because that is closer to the mark than anything else usually... I do really really like to have the possibility to time sound, but why does it need to - over and over again? Booting over to XP, this is never needed. Not on much slower systems either. Mind you, having "only" this puts mplayer on top of things compared to the competition... can anyone just solve this mystery for me, I need never boot back. (Well, when xmame learns to understand my gamepad that jscalibrator has no problem with).
... is a "GIMP for Photoshop users" tutorial. A serious, thought through, extensive one, written by someone that is truly familiar with both. And oh, it should be totally honest too (this is *sorely* lacking). If the GIMP can't do something, or not do it as well, don't sweep it under the rug! If you know the limitations up front, you can take it into the calculation and everything is fine. To discover it in the middle of some big work...
I've known and worked with dozens and dozens of graphics artists that have tried the GIMP, I mean, really tried it, read the docs and experiemnted... at the end of the day (or week, as it may be) they always throw it away in disgust and say it is unusable. Myself, I'm not good with graphics, but I can still easily make a decent banner in Photoshop without reading a line of docs - in GIMP, no way.
Still, I do see people making amazing stuff with the GIMP, so I'm convinced it is us that are missing something - or at least, we don't have the time to learn that mindset that it takes the long way.
Since I do want to use OSS whenever viable, I hope that someone can provide this shortcut. It is in your interest too! I am however, not wasting another week of valuable and expensive time without that kind of shortcut.
Another idea that just occured to me is that a wiki with this theme would be absolutely awesome.
In the long term they plan to make a GPL port of QT for Windows (not only Cygwin, but MINGW as well). This would be EXACTLY what is needed to provide a real, working, viable alterbative to Visual Studio. Get on the bandwagon, they need help now!:D
Basically, they are taking the QT GPL sources for X11 and start to replace Xcalls with Win32 calls. Should be doable...
Re:I really wish QT would reconsider their terms
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Is Windows Worth $45?
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I might (though Python is not a favourite really), but I should probably have mentioned that one of the reasons I really would like to use QT is that almost every free/community RAD tools out there sucks donkey balls, no matter for what platform. I haven't tried this one though, but I'm willing to bet it isn't production quality either - this is one of the places where most effort should be put by the OSS community right now though.:)
Thanks, I might surf there later and see what it can do. Unlike others, however, I am not willing to put up with whatever just to use my free platform - I need to get some work done.;-)
Re:I really wish QT would reconsider their terms
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Is Windows Worth $45?
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I don't mind paying, I just think they should be a bit more reasonable in terms and pricing - it's so all or nothing, and we are talking about a big heap of money that they want. Several times what the industry standard (yuck) Visual Studio costs with all whistles and bells. I still won't buy that for a number of reasons, but I'd like to buy QT - if that was only remotely viable.
Re:I really wish QT would reconsider their terms
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Is Windows Worth $45?
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Thanks, I already know about those, have them installed on my Windows machine, along with the excellent Dev-CPP IDE for MINGW - you missed the point completely, however:
The point was *NOT* to be able to compile stuff on Windows without VS (there are more alternatives as well for this), the point was having something as good, fast, smart and effective in building tools and apps as VS is, that could *target* Windows (I'd rather work in linux, and I know how to cross compile if QT knows how to;-). QT would be excellent for this, and would - if cheaper - be an option for tons of people.
If I would develop "graphic apps" without RAD tools, I would not EVER go with the default Windows API anyways:) - I'd go with FOX, or wxWindows, or FLTK or whatever, and I'd earn crossplatform for free in the process. I'd really, really would like the RAD tools and the great libs though. And yes, I'm willing to pay for good tools, especially RAD tools are so extremely RARE it is unbelievable - but Trolltech is quoting fantasy prices (or rather, big company prices, I'm neither though).
Thanks anyway, I really like MINGW a lot - MSYS needs more work though, and whjat it needs most of all is to stop popping a CMD window for every invoked command... when doing./configure, make, make install the computer is unusable because of the millions of small windows that pop up for every line executed. Makes it almost unusable and extremely annoying. If they just fix that, and work a bit more on making it cooperate with the OS it will be great - it is very close as it is.:)
Re:I really wish QT would reconsider their terms
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Is Windows Worth $45?
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It is covered; you may use it for internal tool making as long as you release the code back to the world as well (which in itself is fine: I like to share). The problem is that people who work on Windows (and yes, there is no alternative in this case) still can't run those tools, because I can't compile for Win, and there is no free runtime for Win.
Can't understand how anyone can pay those licensing fees even for something as good as QT apparently is - it is really sad though, since QT Designer et al seems good and competent enough to be a Visual Studio killer (for some purposes at least), but with that pricing, people will go with VS instead.
Of course, it is great with the free edition thingys, but they are not allowing you to do anything for Windows unless you pay tons more than you would need to pay MS - a very strange practice.
I would like to be able to develop tools under Linux that my co-workers could then use on Windows - I can't, unless I shell out tons of money (more than the win, anyways I don't have that kind of budget).
I would like to be able to develop cool and free stuff, and if I for one reason or the other decide I would like to make something commercial too (you know, to eat?) I would like to be able to purchase a license and re-release my stuff. I can't.
I would like to use QT, since Trolltech are generally the good guys (esp. comparing...), since I really like their tools and interface, and since I know I would have a chance to create great products (falut would not be with lib at least).
I can't. Not under those conditions.
I will still do work with QT for Linux, but some apps will not be made, I will not pay those hilarious sums. Actually, a free version for Windows with the same GPL/QPL tterms would be enough for the most part, but how am I supposed to be able to use QT when I can't target the platform coworkers/customers use? It's so very stupid and counterproductive.
Funny, we as Game developers recently evaluated three of those tools you are mentioning: GIMP, Blender and Sodipodi - none of them are close to being usable. Actually, most of the time it isn't that they can't do the work - it's the fact that NOONE ever puts any thought into the interfaces. And there are no, or bad, docs on the subject either. Sure, they lack features too, but no showstopping ones.
Sodipodi might come out being usable someday, but our GFX artists probably never will try Blender or GIMP again after having to go through this horrible experience (press TAB to save a state, to be able to make an undo, anyone?).
Why, oh why is it taboo to replicate something that *works* and works *fine*??? If somebody took the excellent core code of these apps and just copied the interface from the leaders, these apps would grow their user numbers by factors of tens immideately. Lots of people are looking for free (in several meanings) replacements for the apps they use, but it will still be cheaper in terms of money *and* sanity to pay for Maya and Photoshop than to wrestle with stupidness every day.
Do something about it, or forever stand in the shadows.
Slashdot Mirror
They used to do this, af least. As late as 2002 or something I was buying such machines from them for my company. Too bad they stopped.
That used the backdoor left by the other virus, not a flaw in the virus itself.
That's the US edition, right?
Bullshit, they'd never ever get (successfully) sued.
If we are talking America, the only reason they would not succesfully be sued is because they will most likely have more money. Otherwise it would be far from the strangest case won...
Although I prefer to do it (the writing, pervert! ;) with MacOS X
Why is that? To me it seems it wouldn't matter at all if you use Windows, Linux or Mac for this. Could you please elaborate?
If graphics people start out on the gimp instead of photoshop they will be just as good on that.
No, no, no, no, no, just plain wrong. I'm a programmer also, and definetely not a graphics artist. I tried the GIMP first, and well, I could just not wrap my head around it - with PS (and ImageReady) I could do "cool" montages, animated banners, manipulate photos, whatever, byu just playing around a little and selecting what seemed logical. Trying to guess in the GIMP is about as succesful as trying to guess lottery numbers. Maybe it makes sense to someone that knows graphics, but it sure as hell makes no sense to the average Joe. Whereas PS apparently do.
Just get new people who are about to pirate photoshop for the first time to use gimp instead.
I did just that, for myself: I tried GIMP first. I tried it thouroghly, for quite some time. It sucked ass. Now what?
zeal-ot n.
;-)
1. Person who repeatedly and continously hurts own cause.
Aaaaw, but aren't they just too cute?
Interesting... I do use arts (though I've tried without it also), and nothing else seems to have any trouble with it. Maybe video is special in that regard...
;-) but most applications have trouble sharing the sound card if I try to go without it, while most things support arts or can be run via artsdsp in the worst case scenario. Of course, if you only want/need one source at the time, arts is just so much extra baggage. I could try manipulating the buffers and give it an extra try completely without though, good call.
;-)
I don't know if I have cheap hardware
I have the AC97 (I think) on motherboard card - good call on this one I suppose, although it is said to be supported, it might not be completely. I do have an extra card lying somewhere, gonna try using that instead I guess. It works just fine for anything else though (like I said), but maybe it is extra straining this.
Good and plausible tips, thanks!
(Still, one should not need to ask on slashdot to get this working...
Of course, had you read MPlayer's documentation, you would have seen this:
;-) while I never need any manuals for the Winplayers.
+ and - : adjust audio delay by +/- 0.1 second
If you had read my post, you would have seen that I actually appreciate that function, *and* that I've also set a default value for this that is more correct than letting mplayer decide.
My problem is that I need to do this - that I need to time most movies by hand. Every time. It is pretty hard getting it just right, it is *really* boring and not a good advertisment for Linux - people coming over just ask me to boot over instead - and that might actually be faster then trying to get it "just right".
Sure, you can say that those movies have problems with their encoding or whatever, but then how come that all media players under Windows on the same machine gets it right without any problems whatsoever (and with no need to build any indexes). Media player, Classic, Zoom Player, Real (YUCK), you name them, they have no problems whatsoever, while mplayer almost always has them.
I don't think an AMD 1800 with >600MB should have any troubles here (and it do4esn't under Windows).
I've tried *all* combinations of -ao and -vo, or close enough as matters not, and a lot of other commandline trickery suggested all over the net.
This is my last bastion for Linux, I am working hard to try solving it, so please no stupid accusations of not reading the manual. By the way, that manual is friggin HUGE and takes half a day to read
I will however look at those alternatives mentioned (if they are based on xine/mplayer though I have little hopes). Thanks for the tips!
I have no (big) problems with doing almost all things on Linux nowadays, expect playing media. There are lots of maybe not as good, but very much good enough tools for just about everything else, be it spreadsheets or coding or whatever.
Playing music is ok, I mean it sounds like it should, but no prgrams there has a good interface. XMMS passes barely, so I live with it. The others truly and utterly suck especially when it comes to playlist handling or has some other issue (zinf doesn't support artsd, noatun hangs the system at times, and I mean "need for reset button" hangs, e etc).
Movies are another story, I've tried and read up on mplayer, xine and tried at least 10 different frontends for both - finally settling on mplayer, since if it can't be as good and easy as zoom player or media player classic, at least it can be clean and efficient - and I kinda like it. However, it has lots and lots of issues (as does xine and the others) with sound and performance... but the big dirty one that is the real showstopper is the fact that almost all movies comes with laggy sound! I even have delay 0.5 in my startup file now, because that is closer to the mark than anything else usually... I do really really like to have the possibility to time sound, but why does it need to - over and over again? Booting over to XP, this is never needed. Not on much slower systems either. Mind you, having "only" this puts mplayer on top of things compared to the competition... can anyone just solve this mystery for me, I need never boot back. (Well, when xmame learns to understand my gamepad that jscalibrator has no problem with).
... this QT GPL project was ever done, we could just ignore any such issues for ever and ever: http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/qt3-win32/index. php
... is a "GIMP for Photoshop users" tutorial. A serious, thought through, extensive one, written by someone that is truly familiar with both. And oh, it should be totally honest too (this is *sorely* lacking). If the GIMP can't do something, or not do it as well, don't sweep it under the rug! If you know the limitations up front, you can take it into the calculation and everything is fine. To discover it in the middle of some big work...
I've known and worked with dozens and dozens of graphics artists that have tried the GIMP, I mean, really tried it, read the docs and experiemnted... at the end of the day (or week, as it may be) they always throw it away in disgust and say it is unusable. Myself, I'm not good with graphics, but I can still easily make a decent banner in Photoshop without reading a line of docs - in GIMP, no way.
Still, I do see people making amazing stuff with the GIMP, so I'm convinced it is us that are missing something - or at least, we don't have the time to learn that mindset that it takes the long way.
Since I do want to use OSS whenever viable, I hope that someone can provide this shortcut. It is in your interest too! I am however, not wasting another week of valuable and expensive time without that kind of shortcut.
Another idea that just occured to me is that a wiki with this theme would be absolutely awesome.
I hope you can help me.
... is give these guys a hand up: QT 3 Win32- this project would be totally awesome would it be done!
Maybe I, and others should make a concentrated effort for a couple of months, trying to get this project I found: http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/qt3-win32/ on its feet.
:D
In the long term they plan to make a GPL port of QT for Windows (not only Cygwin, but MINGW as well). This would be EXACTLY what is needed to provide a real, working, viable alterbative to Visual Studio. Get on the bandwagon, they need help now!
Basically, they are taking the QT GPL sources for X11 and start to replace Xcalls with Win32 calls. Should be doable...
I might (though Python is not a favourite really), but I should probably have mentioned that one of the reasons I really would like to use QT is that almost every free/community RAD tools out there sucks donkey balls, no matter for what platform. I haven't tried this one though, but I'm willing to bet it isn't production quality either - this is one of the places where most effort should be put by the OSS community right now though. :)
;-)
Thanks, I might surf there later and see what it can do. Unlike others, however, I am not willing to put up with whatever just to use my free platform - I need to get some work done.
I don't mind paying, I just think they should be a bit more reasonable in terms and pricing - it's so all or nothing, and we are talking about a big heap of money that they want. Several times what the industry standard (yuck) Visual Studio costs with all whistles and bells. I still won't buy that for a number of reasons, but I'd like to buy QT - if that was only remotely viable.
Thanks, I already know about those, have them installed on my Windows machine, along with the excellent Dev-CPP IDE for MINGW - you missed the point completely, however:
;-). QT would be excellent for this, and would - if cheaper - be an option for tons of people.
:) - I'd go with FOX, or wxWindows, or FLTK or whatever, and I'd earn crossplatform for free in the process. I'd really, really would like the RAD tools and the great libs though. And yes, I'm willing to pay for good tools, especially RAD tools are so extremely RARE it is unbelievable - but Trolltech is quoting fantasy prices (or rather, big company prices, I'm neither though).
./configure, make, make install the computer is unusable because of the millions of small windows that pop up for every line executed. Makes it almost unusable and extremely annoying. If they just fix that, and work a bit more on making it cooperate with the OS it will be great - it is very close as it is. :)
The point was *NOT* to be able to compile stuff on Windows without VS (there are more alternatives as well for this), the point was having something as good, fast, smart and effective in building tools and apps as VS is, that could *target* Windows (I'd rather work in linux, and I know how to cross compile if QT knows how to
If I would develop "graphic apps" without RAD tools, I would not EVER go with the default Windows API anyways
Thanks anyway, I really like MINGW a lot - MSYS needs more work though, and whjat it needs most of all is to stop popping a CMD window for every invoked command... when doing
It is covered; you may use it for internal tool making as long as you release the code back to the world as well (which in itself is fine: I like to share). The problem is that people who work on Windows (and yes, there is no alternative in this case) still can't run those tools, because I can't compile for Win, and there is no free runtime for Win.
Can't understand how anyone can pay those licensing fees even for something as good as QT apparently is - it is really sad though, since QT Designer et al seems good and competent enough to be a Visual Studio killer (for some purposes at least), but with that pricing, people will go with VS instead.
:)
Of course, it is great with the free edition thingys, but they are not allowing you to do anything for Windows unless you pay tons more than you would need to pay MS - a very strange practice.
I would like to be able to develop tools under Linux that my co-workers could then use on Windows - I can't, unless I shell out tons of money (more than the win, anyways I don't have that kind of budget).
I would like to be able to develop cool and free stuff, and if I for one reason or the other decide I would like to make something commercial too (you know, to eat?) I would like to be able to purchase a license and re-release my stuff. I can't.
I would like to use QT, since Trolltech are generally the good guys (esp. comparing...), since I really like their tools and interface, and since I know I would have a chance to create great products (falut would not be with lib at least).
I can't. Not under those conditions.
I will still do work with QT for Linux, but some apps will not be made, I will not pay those hilarious sums. Actually, a free version for Windows with the same GPL/QPL tterms would be enough for the most part, but how am I supposed to be able to use QT when I can't target the platform coworkers/customers use? It's so very stupid and counterproductive.
Rant mode off.
... too bad for OSS. :/
Funny, we as Game developers recently evaluated three of those tools you are mentioning: GIMP, Blender and Sodipodi - none of them are close to being usable. Actually, most of the time it isn't that they can't do the work - it's the fact that NOONE ever puts any thought into the interfaces. And there are no, or bad, docs on the subject either. Sure, they lack features too, but no showstopping ones.
Sodipodi might come out being usable someday, but our GFX artists probably never will try Blender or GIMP again after having to go through this horrible experience (press TAB to save a state, to be able to make an undo, anyone?).
Why, oh why is it taboo to replicate something that *works* and works *fine*??? If somebody took the excellent core code of these apps and just copied the interface from the leaders, these apps would grow their user numbers by factors of tens immideately. Lots of people are looking for free (in several meanings) replacements for the apps they use, but it will still be cheaper in terms of money *and* sanity to pay for Maya and Photoshop than to wrestle with stupidness every day.
Do something about it, or forever stand in the shadows.
Well, I am blaming Debian I guess, mostly, although the sysadmin could have made other choices.
I'm happy with the choice of subversion though.
... try having a sysadmin that prefers debian and see how long you have to wait. Sigh. I do like subversion lots though! :)
While I feel sorry for you, I will not be sorry to see such a system go.
About half of them do...