It's always funny to read on how people mistake communism (which is an utopian ideal) with countries which claim to be communists (such as China) while they are but totalitarian state capitalists. I really think that, as far as adopting Linux is concerned, it's much more a matter of nationalistic pride (since they've developed their own "flavour" of Linux) than communist idealism...
Similarly, it's also quite a treat to see all these people saying that they're "capitalists" while they are nothing but employees of corporations. A capitalist is someone who has capital and uses that capital to invest in or create corporations, i.e. making money with money, without actual production-related labor. They should rather say that they wish they were capitalists!:-)
In any case, the whole open-source approach is an interesting take on the traditional business model, but then again software is not a traditional good, being just a string of commands, values, expression, i.e. an immaterial commodity.
Well, you can get the basic version for about 3000$...but I'll admit it's quite a sum if it's not for professionnal purposes.
I'll agree that, from a graphic artist's point of view, the variety of apps is not as great as it is under Windows and MacOS (though, as I've said before, GIMP rules!). However, that variety of apps won't be there until more people start to use the OS. It's the whole chicken/egg thing. Personally, it suits me fine, and for the two apps I need windows for (Illustrator and Quicken), well, there's always VMware...
It seems to me that the top priority (which is what the Lindows guys seem to be thinking) for the Linux community is to produce a comprehensive, stable and fast Wine or Wine-like windows API. Unfortunately, it's still not quite there, though it IS moving forward at quite a pace, considering the staggering amount of work it represents.
Perhaps IBM could send a few of the billion dollars it is supposed to be investing in Linux down Wine's way? Then again, if Lindows delivers on their promise, then they're sitting on a HUGE stash of gold waiting to be unearthed...
Microsoft doesn't have a case: the trademark is on "Microsoft Windows" not "Windows". It's intimidation, pure and simple, because they see this as a potential threat to their Desktop quasi-monopoly.
If you can type out the friggin scene mathmaticaly.
Uh...what about Maya? I mean, it's only the leading industry standard in 3D modelling/animation. And it runs on Linux. See this Alias|Wavefront press release if you don't believe me. The fact is, Linux is now considered a better OS for 3D work than Win2k (faster, more reliable). In my view, nothing beats The Gimp+Maya combination (now if they could only put out the equivalent of Illustrator for Linux...Adobe, are you listening?)
Well of course you can, it's fucking Linux. Last I checked, Linux ran in a mediocre way without pretending to be anything other than what it was.
Wow, that must have been a long time ago!
Meanwhile, Windows still works in a mediocre way while pretending to be the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.
Personally, I don't see the point in emulating Word anymore, though: StarOffice 6.0 (if they can iron out the very few beta bugs) is well worth Office 97, and probably 2000 as well.
I don't know, I use both KDE (2.2) and Gnome (1.4) and I don't see how Gnome is "highly unusable". Sure, X crashes once in a while (because of either Half-Life or RTCW, it seems) in Gnome, I guess it would probably be the same for KDE (which I use less often)...what were your problems with it?
I personally prefer the Gnome panel and Nautilus/Netscape over Konqueror, but I guess it's a matter of taste.
And PLEEEEAZe don't point at Star office because there is NO comparison there.
You obviously haven't tried StarOffice 6.0...it's a completely adequate replacement for MS Office. It is MUCH better than version 5.2, which was kind of crappy. Perhaps the eye candy on SO 6.0 isn't quite as neat as MS office on OSX but, really, once you've used the software for a while, do you still give a &$%! about the eye candy?
I personnally think you're lying through your teeth...first of all, kde is not a distro, so you cannot compare installing kde and w2k.
(Incidentally, if you had really made such a comparative test - which you most obviously have not - you should have tried installation with Mandrake 8.1 instead of "kde": You put in the CD. You select the recommended mode. You sit back - at some point you can fiddle with installation of additional software if you want - and then it's installed. One thing is for certain: it does not require any more brainpower than installing win2k or XP...)
Tell me exactly how sending an e-mail with Netscape is different on Linux than on Windows?
It's pretty easy to come here and post the imaginary results of an imaginary survey. Take me, for example: last night I did a survey on 122 monkeys, half of them using Linux, and half of them using win2k. Well, the monkeys that used Linux ended up with 59% more bananas as the ones that used win2k (of which, 10% were your cousins).
Either you're a MS employee or just one of those bizarre Win2k fanboys...Are you so afraid to lose your OS monopoly that you swoop down to inventing Bogus studies to prove your point?
I'd call you stupid but then you prefer to remain anonymous...
Er...what about those localized versions of windows? Do you think that the Registry keys are in the native tongue? Well, they aren't. The idea here is to have a localized user interface. That's the point you were trying to make, and the counter point was made that you have wide language support in Linux for the UI...not the config files. The top-to-bottom localization you speak of does not exist for Windows any more than for Linux.
As soon as you get under the hood, everything is in english - english is the universal language of computing, for better or for worse. (I remember when they tried to implement a french version of BASIC...it was really weird.)
The fact that Linux may eventually triumph over Windows is of course a matter of pure speculation. Who knows what can happen five years from now...ten years...One thing is for certain, it makes much more sense to have an open, free (as in beer) OS than a proprietary one.
Say what you will about Mandrake, but grandma can't use it.
Come on! If Grandma can't use a correctly configured GNOME/KDE desktop (Mandrake or other), then she probably won't be able to use Windows or even OS X either. Computers still need a bit of training to use...and consider the next generation of users, who sometimes seem to instinctively know how to use GUIs and non-command-line software as easily as playing their PlayStations! The quest to make computers as easy to use is moot...I personnally think that computers are easy enough to use as they are.
I will say this about Mandrake: its installation is as easy (if not more) than that of WinXP. I have actually tried both...have you? If you indeed have installed mandrake, and are not simply talking through you hat, in what way would you say it is harder to install than WinXP?
That's still comparing Apples and... beige boxes! How can you compare the two OSes when they don't even run on the same hardware! If I had an apple computer I'm sure I would have OS X on it, but I don't so what's the point?
As far has having a stable Linux system, I've installed Mandrake 8.1 and it is far more stable than either Win98 or even Win2K...if you still have some x86 hardware, perhaps you should try the new distros - they are certainly not flaky or poorly put together, as you suggest. They are getting quite cohesive (especially with Ximian Gnome). It seems as if you have some kind of pro-OSX/anti-Linux agenda - which, again, makes no sense as they don't even run on the same hardware!
An interesting analogy. I guess open-sourcing OSes is the best way to achieve such a diversity - the important thing then is to make sure that these OSes use "standardized" data, so that they can freely share information.
As far a UI goes, some kind of natural selection will be at work: there's a reason why all GUIs have rolling menus, why you nearly always have a File menu, and Edit menu, etc. That's because it works. Frankly, unless someone develops a paradigm that's very different from the command line or the WIMP (windows, icon, mouse, pointer) interface, there isn't much innovation to bring to the GUI, just an evolutionary refinement. I personnally think GNOME/KDE are going further in that direction - though I must admit that the OSX GUI is kinda cool: gotta love those translucent menus!
StarOffice 6.0 (beta has really few bugs, and can work seamlessly with Office documents)
Opera (or Netscape, which isn't THAT bad...)
Evolution (again, the latest Netscape works pretty good)
The Gimp (now that I've come to know it, it is at least as powerful as Photoshop, if not more)
Quanta (for those who need HTML editors - I'm sold on emacs personnally)
Maya (as expensive as the Win2k version, though...)
Half-Life (easy to set up with wine)
RTCW (with Linux binaries) ...
Actually, the only two apps I am missing from Windows are Adobe Illustrator and Quicken (GNUCash isn't there yet...), but I've used these with VMware and they run without a flaw.
Linux has the GUI, the easy installation and most of the apps. What we need now is a foundation that would collect donations from users all over the world to act as a "marketing" arm and produce TV and magazine advertisement to draw more customers in. I really think the major Linux distribution should momentarily forget their rivalries and get together to set up something like that...they would all benefit in the end.
Innovation isn't always visible of flashy...making a (nearly) crash-free OS IS an innovation. Making an open-source OS, which can be improved by a community of users a programmers instead of a marketing department, IS an innovation. Making an OS that is more efficient in memory and processor management IS innovation (did I mention SETI@home runs TWICE as fast, on same machine, under Linux instead of Win2K? Yes, I use both...)
The reason the GUI look more and more like windows (which itself once strived to look more and more like MacOS) is that people don't really care for innovation, they want to find themselves in familiar territory, and GNOME/KDE gives them that...
If the only innovation brought forth by Microsoft is using pop rock bands in ads and the Start menu, then I really don't think they deserve that epithet (or maybe it's about innovative anti-competitive practices...)
Did you start the program with the -noipx option? If I remember correctly, you need to use TCP/IP with Linux Half-Life...but then again I could be wront, I'm at work and I can't check my config...
Actually the header spoke of "Linux-friendly" games, so I guess Half-Life does count...Anyway, I have shortcuts for it my GNOME panel (Counter-Strike, original Half-Life and Opposing Force). It runs superbly, though I had to write a simple script so that it starts in a 16-bit X console (you can't change color depth on the fly in XFree86).
I haven't been able to get Blue Shift to work, though...it seems a bit different than the other games in the way it's started. If anyone has any info I'd really appreciate it.
Ah, man, you mean I've been playing Half-Life and Counter-Strike at 1024x768 and a smooth 30 FPS on my Linux system all this time, and I didn't have 3D support? (Not to mention that it didn't make my system crash when I paused it twice in a row, like in Windows 2000?)
Man, good thing you're here to show us the error of our ways...
Mmmh...I did have to compile my video card drivers, because nVidia wasn't up to the latest kernel. However, I think it's unfair to claim that you have to compile a windows manager or sound card driver, not to mention recompiling your kernel to support joysticks, video cards or sound cards. Recent Linux distros have come a long way in detecting and configuring hardware automatically.
In my view, we are definitely getting closer to a user-friendly Linux (we are indeed, because otherwise I might not have switched).
But I do agree that it's better to go the WineX way for now, since that is an important part of what is going to bring more users to Linux (everyone wants to play games!). Actually, with distros like Mandrake 8.1, stealing users away from Microsoft is no longer an ease of use issue, but rather wether or not Windows most popular programs will run under Linux or not. Once the desktop marketshare has increased, it will be a lot easier to have developers make products that run native in Linux...
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It's always funny to read on how people mistake communism (which is an utopian ideal) with countries which claim to be communists (such as China) while they are but totalitarian state capitalists. I really think that, as far as adopting Linux is concerned, it's much more a matter of nationalistic pride (since they've developed their own "flavour" of Linux) than communist idealism...
:-)
Similarly, it's also quite a treat to see all these people saying that they're "capitalists" while they are nothing but employees of corporations. A capitalist is someone who has capital and uses that capital to invest in or create corporations, i.e. making money with money, without actual production-related labor. They should rather say that they wish they were capitalists!
In any case, the whole open-source approach is an interesting take on the traditional business model, but then again software is not a traditional good, being just a string of commands, values, expression, i.e. an immaterial commodity.
Well, you can get the basic version for about 3000$...but I'll admit it's quite a sum if it's not for professionnal purposes.
I'll agree that, from a graphic artist's point of view, the variety of apps is not as great as it is under Windows and MacOS (though, as I've said before, GIMP rules!). However, that variety of apps won't be there until more people start to use the OS. It's the whole chicken/egg thing. Personally, it suits me fine, and for the two apps I need windows for (Illustrator and Quicken), well, there's always VMware...
It seems to me that the top priority (which is what the Lindows guys seem to be thinking) for the Linux community is to produce a comprehensive, stable and fast Wine or Wine-like windows API. Unfortunately, it's still not quite there, though it IS moving forward at quite a pace, considering the staggering amount of work it represents.
Perhaps IBM could send a few of the billion dollars it is supposed to be investing in Linux down Wine's way? Then again, if Lindows delivers on their promise, then they're sitting on a HUGE stash of gold waiting to be unearthed...
Microsoft doesn't have a case: the trademark is on "Microsoft Windows" not "Windows". It's intimidation, pure and simple, because they see this as a potential threat to their Desktop quasi-monopoly.
Graphic design, 3d modeling, animation, etc.
Yah yah yah you can POVRay it.
If you can type out the friggin scene mathmaticaly.
Uh...what about Maya? I mean, it's only the leading industry standard in 3D modelling/animation. And it runs on Linux. See this Alias|Wavefront press release if you don't believe me. The fact is, Linux is now considered a better OS for 3D work than Win2k (faster, more reliable). In my view, nothing beats The Gimp+Maya combination (now if they could only put out the equivalent of Illustrator for Linux...Adobe, are you listening?)
Well of course you can, it's fucking Linux. Last I checked, Linux ran in a mediocre way without pretending to be anything other than what it was.
Wow, that must have been a long time ago!
Meanwhile, Windows still works in a mediocre way while pretending to be the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.
Personally, I don't see the point in emulating Word anymore, though: StarOffice 6.0 (if they can iron out the very few beta bugs) is well worth Office 97, and probably 2000 as well.
I don't know, I use both KDE (2.2) and Gnome (1.4) and I don't see how Gnome is "highly unusable". Sure, X crashes once in a while (because of either Half-Life or RTCW, it seems) in Gnome, I guess it would probably be the same for KDE (which I use less often)...what were your problems with it?
I personally prefer the Gnome panel and Nautilus/Netscape over Konqueror, but I guess it's a matter of taste.
And PLEEEEAZe don't point at Star office because there is NO comparison there.
You obviously haven't tried StarOffice 6.0...it's a completely adequate replacement for MS Office. It is MUCH better than version 5.2, which was kind of crappy. Perhaps the eye candy on SO 6.0 isn't quite as neat as MS office on OSX but, really, once you've used the software for a while, do you still give a &$%! about the eye candy?
I personnally think you're lying through your teeth...first of all, kde is not a distro, so you cannot compare installing kde and w2k.
(Incidentally, if you had really made such a comparative test - which you most obviously have not - you should have tried installation with Mandrake 8.1 instead of "kde": You put in the CD. You select the recommended mode. You sit back - at some point you can fiddle with installation of additional software if you want - and then it's installed. One thing is for certain: it does not require any more brainpower than installing win2k or XP...)
Tell me exactly how sending an e-mail with Netscape is different on Linux than on Windows?
It's pretty easy to come here and post the imaginary results of an imaginary survey. Take me, for example: last night I did a survey on 122 monkeys, half of them using Linux, and half of them using win2k. Well, the monkeys that used Linux ended up with 59% more bananas as the ones that used win2k (of which, 10% were your cousins).
Either you're a MS employee or just one of those bizarre Win2k fanboys...Are you so afraid to lose your OS monopoly that you swoop down to inventing Bogus studies to prove your point?
I'd call you stupid but then you prefer to remain anonymous...
Er...what about those localized versions of windows? Do you think that the Registry keys are in the native tongue? Well, they aren't. The idea here is to have a localized user interface. That's the point you were trying to make, and the counter point was made that you have wide language support in Linux for the UI...not the config files. The top-to-bottom localization you speak of does not exist for Windows any more than for Linux.
As soon as you get under the hood, everything is in english - english is the universal language of computing, for better or for worse. (I remember when they tried to implement a french version of BASIC...it was really weird.)
The fact that Linux may eventually triumph over Windows is of course a matter of pure speculation. Who knows what can happen five years from now...ten years...One thing is for certain, it makes much more sense to have an open, free (as in beer) OS than a proprietary one.
Say what you will about Mandrake, but grandma can't use it.
Come on! If Grandma can't use a correctly configured GNOME/KDE desktop (Mandrake or other), then she probably won't be able to use Windows or even OS X either. Computers still need a bit of training to use...and consider the next generation of users, who sometimes seem to instinctively know how to use GUIs and non-command-line software as easily as playing their PlayStations! The quest to make computers as easy to use is moot...I personnally think that computers are easy enough to use as they are.
I will say this about Mandrake: its installation is as easy (if not more) than that of WinXP. I have actually tried both...have you? If you indeed have installed mandrake, and are not simply talking through you hat, in what way would you say it is harder to install than WinXP?
That's still comparing Apples and ... beige boxes! How can you compare the two OSes when they don't even run on the same hardware! If I had an apple computer I'm sure I would have OS X on it, but I don't so what's the point?
As far has having a stable Linux system, I've installed Mandrake 8.1 and it is far more stable than either Win98 or even Win2K...if you still have some x86 hardware, perhaps you should try the new distros - they are certainly not flaky or poorly put together, as you suggest. They are getting quite cohesive (especially with Ximian Gnome). It seems as if you have some kind of pro-OSX/anti-Linux agenda - which, again, makes no sense as they don't even run on the same hardware!
An interesting analogy. I guess open-sourcing OSes is the best way to achieve such a diversity - the important thing then is to make sure that these OSes use "standardized" data, so that they can freely share information.
As far a UI goes, some kind of natural selection will be at work: there's a reason why all GUIs have rolling menus, why you nearly always have a File menu, and Edit menu, etc. That's because it works. Frankly, unless someone develops a paradigm that's very different from the command line or the WIMP (windows, icon, mouse, pointer) interface, there isn't much innovation to bring to the GUI, just an evolutionary refinement. I personnally think GNOME/KDE are going further in that direction - though I must admit that the OSX GUI is kinda cool: gotta love those translucent menus!
Such as?
...
StarOffice 6.0 (beta has really few bugs, and can work seamlessly with Office documents)
Opera (or Netscape, which isn't THAT bad...)
Evolution (again, the latest Netscape works pretty good)
The Gimp (now that I've come to know it, it is at least as powerful as Photoshop, if not more)
Quanta (for those who need HTML editors - I'm sold on emacs personnally)
Maya (as expensive as the Win2k version, though...)
Half-Life (easy to set up with wine)
RTCW (with Linux binaries)
Actually, the only two apps I am missing from Windows are Adobe Illustrator and Quicken (GNUCash isn't there yet...), but I've used these with VMware and they run without a flaw.
Linux has the GUI, the easy installation and most of the apps. What we need now is a foundation that would collect donations from users all over the world to act as a "marketing" arm and produce TV and magazine advertisement to draw more customers in. I really think the major Linux distribution should momentarily forget their rivalries and get together to set up something like that...they would all benefit in the end.
Innovation isn't always visible of flashy...making a (nearly) crash-free OS IS an innovation. Making an open-source OS, which can be improved by a community of users a programmers instead of a marketing department, IS an innovation. Making an OS that is more efficient in memory and processor management IS innovation (did I mention SETI@home runs TWICE as fast, on same machine, under Linux instead of Win2K? Yes, I use both...) The reason the GUI look more and more like windows (which itself once strived to look more and more like MacOS) is that people don't really care for innovation, they want to find themselves in familiar territory, and GNOME/KDE gives them that... If the only innovation brought forth by Microsoft is using pop rock bands in ads and the Start menu, then I really don't think they deserve that epithet (or maybe it's about innovative anti-competitive practices...)
Did you start the program with the -noipx option? If I remember correctly, you need to use TCP/IP with Linux Half-Life...but then again I could be wront, I'm at work and I can't check my config...
Actually the header spoke of "Linux-friendly" games, so I guess Half-Life does count...Anyway, I have shortcuts for it my GNOME panel (Counter-Strike, original Half-Life and Opposing Force). It runs superbly, though I had to write a simple script so that it starts in a 16-bit X console (you can't change color depth on the fly in XFree86). I haven't been able to get Blue Shift to work, though...it seems a bit different than the other games in the way it's started. If anyone has any info I'd really appreciate it.
Ah, man, you mean I've been playing Half-Life and Counter-Strike at 1024x768 and a smooth 30 FPS on my Linux system all this time, and I didn't have 3D support? (Not to mention that it didn't make my system crash when I paused it twice in a row, like in Windows 2000?) Man, good thing you're here to show us the error of our ways...
Mmmh...I did have to compile my video card drivers, because nVidia wasn't up to the latest kernel. However, I think it's unfair to claim that you have to compile a windows manager or sound card driver, not to mention recompiling your kernel to support joysticks, video cards or sound cards. Recent Linux distros have come a long way in detecting and configuring hardware automatically. In my view, we are definitely getting closer to a user-friendly Linux (we are indeed, because otherwise I might not have switched). But I do agree that it's better to go the WineX way for now, since that is an important part of what is going to bring more users to Linux (everyone wants to play games!). Actually, with distros like Mandrake 8.1, stealing users away from Microsoft is no longer an ease of use issue, but rather wether or not Windows most popular programs will run under Linux or not. Once the desktop marketshare has increased, it will be a lot easier to have developers make products that run native in Linux...