Now, most of people that I know who are running Linux are doing it mainly because of easy maintenance and reliablity.
Backside of mulating Windows is that you also have to implement all the flaws that some software unfortunately rely on. So does it really makes a difference after all if you have Office crashing on Windows or under Wine ?
if everyone was as as smart as most linux users, their windows boxes wouldn't be as fucked up w/virii or whatever from outlook.
Many people couldn't care to learn "geek stuff".
It's nothing to do with intelligence though.
As soon as you understand what a virus actually does, it's relatively easy to keep them away. But if you don't have the know-how to run F-prot you are out of luck.
Actually this has more potentiality than many people seem to realize.
What I mean is that making a GUI that is >95% like Windows doesn't mean that everybody should use it.
It means that ordinary (stupid?) end users can use it and never now it's something else than Windows.
Most people won't find a difference between Win98 and Win2000pro even if you can find it on the side of your start menu (ever worked as a helpdesk ?)
Those that know the difference, would still have all the choices out there, whether they want to run Enlightenment or evilwm.
After all, you can run KDE apps under Gnome and Gnome apps under KDE, if you just have the libs.
If other people where running Linux apps too and have they look&feel like Windows, then you could run the same apps with whatever you like.
Now you have to use Outlook just to see when your you should be in a meeting.
Maybe we could start this new "Windows GUI project" with GTK+ theme that looks and feels like Windows:)
Just a quick notice: configuration of automation tools also takes time. It the same with Word, it takes more time to browse to menus than do it on vi(m) with HTML and CSS and the result usually statifies longer.
Now, there reason I changed my debian to LFS was
that
I wanted to know and also decide what is where. Automatic installation efficiently takes away your decision of whether Apache should remain in/usr/local/apache,/opt/services/apache or/home/apache (which I happen to prefer) or whatever you like.
I wanted to have the decision about do I need X to run nethack, or that my PHP module doesn't support MySQL at all but PostgreSQL instead.
With a prebuilt package you might find out that to install say vim to your 486 with 280MB hard disk, you need to install X because the prebuilt vim happens to be linked against X libraries.
After I install any library (version) not known by the distro-of-choice my self, I efficiently render the dependency stuff broken so I end up compile it yourself system anyway.
Automated updatings are basicly nogood. What if my computer had updated to 2.4.15 as soon as it was released. I wound't mind that on a test machine but for my primary workstation I prefer having somebody else finding the worst problems first.
Also IF the system breaks after update done manually, at least I can say what actually was updated. You need to use the update but if you don't, it's of no value.
The optimized for specific hardware thing might be an issue for a 386 which you want to run as fast as possible but really doesn't matter that much on modern hardware on which you often can't even find much difference with a program compiled with or without optimizations.
The great parts of compiling something yourself are so great because of the lack of automation, not because the compilation itself.
After all, all you have to do is go to a US website offering encryption for download, tick the box stating that you are allowed to download the software and wait for it to be transferred.
Not many companies actually check if you are US or not. They just want you to say you are, so they can say "That guy said he's US, we couldn't know he wasn't.
Summary: on the Internet you are told that you shouldn't download outside US but nobody cares. This is especially true for Open Source.
If you American's make it national law, then spammers just move their spam business somewhere else. To do any good we would need an international agreement which in turn tends to be impossible.
How many of those who actually implement.NET style XML (after all XML is just a common syntax for differnt kinds of data formats) in their web services are actually going to be running the.NET framework also ?
People here seem to forget one thing:
There is a framebuffer support in Linux kernel.
I know it's still experimental (my experience is that it's quite stable ayway) but..
If you want to do windowing system,
want to support a lot of hardware with at least
on basic level (VESA) and think it's OK doing it on
Linux, try compiling the framebuffer support into your kernel (if it's not there already) and building your system on top of it. There some points why this would be a god idea..
You don't have to care about the low-level stuff
You are in less risk of having to reboot as you are running on one virtual terminal
Now (slow) mode switches when you change virtual terminals -> easier to do debugging
Anybody with framebuffer-support will be able to join the development as it won't be one chipset/graphics card only..
If you make it modular enough (nice wrappers for all framebuffer stuff) it will be easy to port it over to something else or build real hardware
drivers later. This way you can first get something running and only then see if you/or somebody can make a better driver for it
Who knows if the project would even speed up framebuffer development if it gets popular enough:)
Could it be possible that (some of) the virus writers just want to prove that they can do something as intelligent as a computer virus.
But when they start playing around with Linux they instead get caught to making their systems better and developing new aps that they care about virii no more ?
I'd say that on Windows 9x it even easier to write a decent virus than to make a nice application of some usefullness but on Linux it's the reverse.
The closed source makes you angry -> you write a virus.
The open source makes you intrested -> you try to make it better.
For window managers I'd say that minimal is wm2 or evilwm. I prefer wmx (based on wm2) which is also very easy to customize because the source code is clean and easy to read and doesn't require months of study for little modifications.
For terminals I agree. Aterm's fast.
For easy use dispite of it being a bit bloated and console I'd give a try to the good old pine which runs fine in an Aterm on my 486DX2/66 with 16 MB ram:)
Even if having a nice taskbar is easy for windows users I'd say that a desktop root menu is no harder (if not easier) to use and save precious space on a lo-end monitor and graphics card that can't give you that nice X*Y resolution but something like 800x600:)
I personally use wmx + aterm for most of things: bitchx for irc, pine for mail, and vim for coding (though nano (pico style easy to use but faster)) is a editor for choise for my more windows that linux friend on his lo-end linux shell server (for IRC + screen:)
wmx wins for me because of it's lack of configuration.. it just works and has virtual desktops etc without need to mess with how many you want by creating more on need and removing unused..
I would like to note two examples of linux use in schools: first my former senior secondary.
We had a single mail + web server. I was running Debian GNU/Linux.
Now, I was running on the hardware (and actually still is) that was too old for the Windows workstations. I think the one now in use is P120 with 96 MB ram (more ram was added and a larger hard drive was installed when we made it a server, but otherwise it was just an outdated workstation).
The was some problems, but none of them took too much time to fix. Worst case was when both hard drives broke (physically, nobody actually knows why). Ever tried to get a Windows web + mail server running in one day ? I haven't, but a whole new linux system was installed in three days.
Got old web pages and mail boxes back using alternative ext2 superblocks and heavy use of e2fsck. At least most of it.
There has been but one problem since the installation about 2 years ago. It was a APM problem with the mainboard. Fixing that no reboot (apart from power outages) has been done.
And with almost zero adminstration.
Voluntary administration by hobbyist students.
I think somebody updated Apache at some point but
that was more like "let's update to get this fancy thing" than from need.
Another example is my university (Helsinki University of Technology). About half of the workstations are running some kind of Unix. To my knowledge most of the servers are running some kind of Unix. And you have several "stupid terminals" around the school to connect to the shell servers.
Debian Linux is what atleast some of the newest computers are running. As there are hundreds of computers using Free OS really makes a difference.
Of university I can't tell much more as I'm just a first year student, but many people prefer using UNIX terminals/workstations to do simple tasks like reading mail etc because they work faster and are more stable. Many people with not much experience with computers actually find learning to use unix more easy than learing to use Windows. Futher they find that with UNIX computers they can actually specify what they want to do rather than hoping windows to do what it wants:)
The dual OS sceme (actually multi as there are also atleast SUN's and IBM's unix workstations too) works fine. By using Linux they probably cut down the UNIX expences even more than they could cut down expences by turning all windows machines into Linux machines.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, most of people that I know who are running Linux are doing it mainly because of easy maintenance and reliablity.
Backside of mulating Windows is that you also have to implement all the flaws that some software unfortunately rely on. So does it really makes a difference after all if you have Office crashing on Windows or under Wine ?
Many people couldn't care to learn "geek stuff". It's nothing to do with intelligence though. As soon as you understand what a virus actually does, it's relatively easy to keep them away. But if you don't have the know-how to run F-prot you are out of luck.
Actually this has more potentiality than many people seem to realize.
What I mean is that making a GUI that is >95% like Windows doesn't mean that everybody should use it. It means that ordinary (stupid?) end users can use it and never now it's something else than Windows.
Most people won't find a difference between Win98 and Win2000pro even if you can find it on the side of your start menu (ever worked as a helpdesk ?)
Those that know the difference, would still have all the choices out there, whether they want to run Enlightenment or evilwm. After all, you can run KDE apps under Gnome and Gnome apps under KDE, if you just have the libs. If other people where running Linux apps too and have they look&feel like Windows, then you could run the same apps with whatever you like. Now you have to use Outlook just to see when your you should be in a meeting.
Maybe we could start this new "Windows GUI project" with GTK+ theme that looks and feels like Windows :)
Now everyone with Loki's games, quickly send them the price you would have paid for it, and they even might reconsider :)
Just a quick notice: configuration of automation tools also takes time. It the same with Word, it takes more time to browse to menus than do it on vi(m) with HTML and CSS and the result usually statifies longer.
The optimized for specific hardware thing might be an issue for a 386 which you want to run as fast as possible but really doesn't matter that much on modern hardware on which you often can't even find much difference with a program compiled with or without optimizations.
The great parts of compiling something yourself are so great because of the lack of automation, not because the compilation itself.
Why bother printing anything ?
After all, all you have to do is go to a US website offering encryption for download, tick the box stating that you are allowed to download the software and wait for it to be transferred.
Not many companies actually check if you are US or not. They just want you to say you are, so they can say "That guy said he's US, we couldn't know he wasn't.
Summary: on the Internet you are told that you shouldn't download outside US but nobody cares. This is especially true for Open Source.
If you American's make it national law, then spammers just move their spam business somewhere else. To do any good we would need an international agreement which in turn tends to be impossible.
And now the big question:
How many of those who actually implement .NET style XML (after all XML is just a common syntax for differnt kinds of data formats) in their web services are actually going to be running the .NET framework also ?
People here seem to forget one thing: There is a framebuffer support in Linux kernel. I know it's still experimental (my experience is that it's quite stable ayway) but..
If you want to do windowing system, want to support a lot of hardware with at least on basic level (VESA) and think it's OK doing it on Linux, try compiling the framebuffer support into your kernel (if it's not there already) and building your system on top of it. There some points why this would be a god idea..
If you make it modular enough (nice wrappers for all framebuffer stuff) it will be easy to port it over to something else or build real hardware drivers later. This way you can first get something running and only then see if you/or somebody can make a better driver for it
Who knows if the project would even speed up framebuffer development if it gets popular enough :)
Could it be possible that (some of) the virus writers just want to prove that they can do something as intelligent as a computer virus.
But when they start playing around with Linux they instead get caught to making their systems better and developing new aps that they care about virii no more ?
I'd say that on Windows 9x it even easier to write a decent virus than to make a nice application of some usefullness but on Linux it's the reverse.
The closed source makes you angry -> you write a virus.
The open source makes you intrested -> you try to make it better.
Anybody got my point ?
For window managers I'd say that minimal is wm2 or evilwm. I prefer wmx (based on wm2) which is also very easy to customize because the source code is clean and easy to read and doesn't require months of study for little modifications.
:)
:)
:)
For terminals I agree. Aterm's fast.
For easy use dispite of it being a bit bloated and console I'd give a try to the good old pine which runs fine in an Aterm on my 486DX2/66 with 16 MB ram
Even if having a nice taskbar is easy for windows users I'd say that a desktop root menu is no harder (if not easier) to use and save precious space on a lo-end monitor and graphics card that can't give you that nice X*Y resolution but something like 800x600
I personally use wmx + aterm for most of things: bitchx for irc, pine for mail, and vim for coding (though nano (pico style easy to use but faster)) is a editor for choise for my more windows that linux friend on his lo-end linux shell server (for IRC + screen
wmx wins for me because of it's lack of configuration.. it just works and has virtual desktops etc without need to mess with how many you want by creating more on need and removing unused..
I would like to note two examples of linux use in schools: first my former senior secondary.
:)
We had a single mail + web server. I was running Debian GNU/Linux.
Now, I was running on the hardware (and actually still is) that was too old for the Windows workstations. I think the one now in use is P120 with 96 MB ram (more ram was added and a larger hard drive was installed when we made it a server, but otherwise it was just an outdated workstation).
The was some problems, but none of them took too much time to fix. Worst case was when both hard drives broke (physically, nobody actually knows why). Ever tried to get a Windows web + mail server running in one day ? I haven't, but a whole new linux system was installed in three days.
Got old web pages and mail boxes back using alternative ext2 superblocks and heavy use of e2fsck. At least most of it.
There has been but one problem since the installation about 2 years ago. It was a APM problem with the mainboard. Fixing that no reboot (apart from power outages) has been done.
And with almost zero adminstration.
Voluntary administration by hobbyist students.
I think somebody updated Apache at some point but
that was more like "let's update to get this fancy thing" than from need.
Another example is my university (Helsinki University of Technology). About half of the workstations are running some kind of Unix. To my knowledge most of the servers are running some kind of Unix. And you have several "stupid terminals" around the school to connect to the shell servers.
Debian Linux is what atleast some of the newest computers are running. As there are hundreds of computers using Free OS really makes a difference.
Of university I can't tell much more as I'm just a first year student, but many people prefer using UNIX terminals/workstations to do simple tasks like reading mail etc because they work faster and are more stable. Many people with not much experience with computers actually find learning to use unix more easy than learing to use Windows. Futher they find that with UNIX computers they can actually specify what they want to do rather than hoping windows to do what it wants
The dual OS sceme (actually multi as there are also atleast SUN's and IBM's unix workstations too) works fine. By using Linux they probably cut down the UNIX expences even more than they could cut down expences by turning all windows machines into Linux machines.