Not at all. If you read Slashdot comments more often you'll see that most people complain that OpenOffice looks too different from MS Office and that it will require lots of retraining to switch.
What?!?!? Since when are kmix, gmix and xmixer incompatible? They both use OSS or ALSA. They're 100% compataible! I change my volume in gmix - it works. I change my volume in kmix - it works.
Whomever modded your post to +5 obviously knows nothing about Linux and assumed that since it's criticism, it must be true. Your post is so full of lies (yes, lies!) that it doesn't deserve anything less than "troll".
VIA82xxx sound card? I have one too. When I installed Fedora, the card was autodetected. It worked perfectly out-of-the-box.
This is what I have in my modules.conf for ALSA: # ALSA alias char-major-116 snd alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx options snd-card-0 index=0 dxs_support=4
# OSS/Free portion alias char-major-14 soundcore alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
# card #1 alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
Y-Windows doesn't magically solve all the problems. Do you think Y will magically erase GTK and QT out of existence and automagically port exiting GTK and QT apps? I don't think so! Y's server-side toolkit will do no good if developers don't use it.
And frankly, all the Slashdot crowd does is pissing off developers. One even said developers should be slaves, and got modded up to +5! It's exactly because of this kind of attitude why Slashdot is preventing Linux from succeeding on the desktop: the belittleling of developers.
Look, if you want them to listen to you, then calm down and don't use CAPITALS or "????!!!!" all over the place. It makes you look like a zealot with emotional problems.
Anyway... a large part of the slowness over the network are caused by the toolkit and the apps, not by the protocol itself! QT and GTK do not use the X protocol efficiently. Until the toolkits and apps are fixed, use NX compression. I heard it does wonders and makes Mozilla usable even over a modem.
The word "innovation" is so overused that it has lost it's meaning. Just look at the comments in all the other articles. Slashdotters massively complain that Linux's GUI is too different from Windows's, and thus will fail on the desktop!
Uhm yeah Linux is playing catch up. So what? I'm very happy with Linux as my desktop OS, and I much prefer it over XP. I don't need the latest cool inventions, I want something that works, and works well. I use Windows *only* for games. For everything else, I always find myself rebooting back to Linux.
Linux and open source do exactly what they're good at: making others' innovations available in a cheap way.
Seriously, almost nobody in computer land innovates. Microsoft? Not innovative. MacOS X? Combination of old ideas + some neat graphics effect. Everybody copies all sorts of stuff from each other. Nobody cares but the few geeks who use innovation as a buzzword agaist Linux. My dad couldn't care less whether Linux is "innovative" or not. He uses Linux for browsing the Internet, and is happy with it.
I agree with you. Linux is ready for most average users who don't do much. The problem is that Slashdot doesn't recognize this! People will continue to flame down Linux (and get modded up!).
The quality app problem is a chiken & egg problem. Adobe won't port Photoshop until Linux has more users, and Linux won't have more users until Adobe ports Photoshop. Slashdotters don't recognize this either and continue to blame absolutely everything on Linux.
"- The Gimp is phenomenal, but how about those fonts? Sure, you can do lots and lots of cool things with just images, but graphics pros _need_ those slick fonts."
Have you tried Gimp 2? Download any truetype font you want, put it in ~/.fonts, and it'll work.
Typical anti-open source zealotry. When someone's criticising open source criticism, people like you can't take it.
No thanks, I'll save my money by using excellent open source software.
Re:Anyone who writes meaningless jargon like
on
GNOME for Grandma
·
· Score: 1
Dude, this is Slashdot. Don't you think this is an appropriate place to use jargon? It's like going to a meeting for rocket scientists and then complain that they all use meaningless jargon.
No wonder nobody takes Slashdot seriously anymore: it's because of the belittleling and mindless bashing of anybody who's technical.
I think his comments make it appear like he's trying to personally insult everybody who works on open source software, with only one goal: the mental destruction of open source developers.
"This has been this way forever and windows still has 90% of the marketshare. People are willing to pay for windows."
You're kidding right? Most people either have Windows pre-installed, or use a pirated version of Windows. A lot of people pirate Windows! Especially take a look at teenagers - they pirate all sorts of other stuff too.
That's like blaming a poor man that he doesn't have tons of money.
Users won't use Linux until it gets major third party support, and major third parties will not support Linux until there are lots of users. Flaming Linux down for being in a chiken & egg situation is just stupid.
I'd say: who the hell cares who invented it? Linux (the kernel) is good, 2.6 has gotten a lot of improvements. I don't care whether you call it "innovation" or not - it's just good.
"Floppy disk formated with/SYS"
What the... you compare Windows boot floppies with LiveCDs?! What when you put this floppy in a computer without Windows, or on a computer with a broken Windows install that doesn't want to boot?
"Every new release of a Linux distribution gets closer and closer to the latest Windows OS."
So? If that makes the user interface better then who cares whether it's innovative?
But corporate desktops is where desktop domination begins. You don't begin targeting home users - you begin targeting corporate users. Once you have a good piece of market share on the corporate desktops, it'll be easier to extend to the home desktop.
Yes Linux has issues. These issues are constantly being worked on and are improving. Installing a printer for example is as simple as starting the printer configuration tool and have your printer autodetected. I don't have a digital camera but I heard that on desktop distros like Mandrake, the camera is automounted and an icon will automatically appear on the desktop. My parents for example don't install software or hardware. They just use the computer to get on the Internet, that's it. Linux is a perfectly fine option for them - they're already using it.
But there are also other *huge* issues which are something Linux can't really do something about: the chicken & egg issues. Hardware support for example - hardware manufacturers won't support Linux until there are lots of users, and users won't use Linux until hardware manufacturers support it. Same thing for games and commercial apps.
Exactly. We're not there yet but we get closer every year. This is the thing that most Linux critics simply don't recognize: Linux keeps improving and gets closer and closer.
How do you know he doesn't use a GUI? Is that how you deal people deal with criticism - mod everybody who has no problems down as commandline geeks?
Ever since XFT2/fontconfig and the Bitstream Vera fonts have been released, I've been enjoying high-quality, subpixel antialiased fonts on my Linux desktop computer. I suggest you to upgrade to a modern distribution and use the Vera fonts.
Alternatives are not going away. What's wrong with making both GNOME and KDE so userfriendly that the user can find it's way no matter which desktop he's using? Some people prefer simplicity while other people prefer power and bells & whistles. What's wrong with being able to choose what desktop you want based on your *preference*? In case you don't want to choose - fine, use whatever default desktop is chosen by your distribution. You don't have to choose if you really don't want to.
As for standardizes interfaces: even Windows doesn't have standardized interfaces. Installers all look a little different from each other - fullscreen blue InstallShield, MSI, Win2k-style InstallShield, fullscreen Inno Setup, Win2k-style Inno Setup, WinSFX, WISE Installer, etc. etc. An installation system that handles dependancies with no user interfaction is being worked on - see my sig. We're close to 1.0.
You can just focus the address bar and press Ctrl+U, that will clear the entire text entry. Alternatively, you can also rightclick on the address bar and click Clear if you're using Galeon.
Middle click pasting is very useful when you don't have to delete anything and just want to paste.
According to the standard there are two seperated "clipboards" (or in technical terms, "selections") in X: - PRIMAIRY: if you select something, it automatically gets put in this clipboard. If you middle click somewhere, the text from this clipboard is pasted. - CLIPBOARD: Text is only put into this clipboard if you explicitly give the application a command to do so (for example, by pressing Ctrl+C or Edit->Copy). You can only paste from this clipboard by pressing Ctrl+V or Edit->Paste. This clipboard works almost identical to the Windows clipboard.
Again, PRIMAIRY and CLIPBOARD are two seperated clipboard. If you middle click somewhere, the app will only paste from PRIMAIRY, and if you press Ctrl+V, the app will only paste from CLIPBOARD. At least, this is how it's supposed to work (according to the standard). Historically, people have been confused by the difference between PRIMAIRY and CLIPBOARD, and wrote broken apps. QT 1.x and 2.x for example copy everything to PRIMAIRY, even if you press Ctrl+C, while it's supposed to copy to CLIPBOARD. This has been fixed in QT 3. Nowadays, most apps comply to the standard: this includes QT 3+, GTK 1.2+, Mozilla*, OpenOffice and Motif. There are still a few (not widely used fortunately) apps and toolkits left that are still broken.
In summary: if you press Ctrl+X/C/V or use the menus, the clipboard works exactly like in Windows. The middleclick option is just there for the power users who appriciate it, and is a completely seperated clipboard.
One thing a lot of people don't know is that the X clipboard mechanism does support more than just plain text. In fact, you can put more than one kind of data on the clipboard, just like in Windows. It's just that application developers don't use this feature often for some reason unknown to me. Copy & Pasting of rich text or HTML between Mozilla and OpenOffice works (at least for me). Copy & Pasting between AbiWord and OpenOffice works. Copy & pasting of images between seperate Gimp session does not work because Gimp doesn't even use the X clipboard. Why they do this is beyond me.
Who cares? It's fixed. Only trolls still go nitpicking about issues that have already been fixed instead of actually using the fixed versions. It's like people complaining that Windows finally have virtual desktops after 10 years, or that Linux finally has AA fonts after 10 years. Nobody cares but trolls.
OK this is a complicated issue but let me summarize it:
The X "clipboard" is actually an IPC mechanism and is a bit different from the (traditional!) Windows clipboard. When you click Paste in kedit, it actually asks gedit to transfer data to it. The advantage of this approach is that it is fast because data is only transferred when needed. The disadvantage is that if you close gedit (the "clipboard owner"), you can't paste anymore, because there is no app provide the data.
MS Windows actually has two clipboards: the traditional clipboard and the new clipboard. The old clipboard keeps the data in memory, that's why there's sometimes a (small) lag when you copy something. The new clipboard works very similar to the X clipboard: it's fast, but it gets lost if you close the app! Yes, Microsoft is moving to a X-like clipboard model. A lot of apps these days use a combination of the old and the new Windows clipboard.
For full details, see http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/ 2003-September/msg00257.html
And about that daemon: that was written by me.;) http://members1.chello.nl/~h.lai/gnome-clipboard-d aemon/index.html
I don't agree. This is Slashdot, I'm supposed to be able to say fork() here and have people understand me. If this is a non-technical site then I wouldn't have used term. But the point is, this *is* a technical site, I'm supposed to be allowed to use jargon.
Slashdot Mirror
Not at all. If you read Slashdot comments more often you'll see that most people complain that OpenOffice looks too different from MS Office and that it will require lots of retraining to switch.
Both GNOME and KDE save volume settings for you and restore them on login. Anybody who has volume problems is using outdated software.
"Linux has numerous software mixers!"
What?!?!? Since when are kmix, gmix and xmixer incompatible? They both use OSS or ALSA. They're 100% compataible! I change my volume in gmix - it works. I change my volume in kmix - it works.
Whomever modded your post to +5 obviously knows nothing about Linux and assumed that since it's criticism, it must be true. Your post is so full of lies (yes, lies!) that it doesn't deserve anything less than "troll".
VIA82xxx sound card? I have one too. When I installed Fedora, the card was autodetected. It worked perfectly out-of-the-box.
This is what I have in my modules.conf for ALSA:
# ALSA
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx
options snd-card-0 index=0 dxs_support=4
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
Y-Windows doesn't magically solve all the problems. Do you think Y will magically erase GTK and QT out of existence and automagically port exiting GTK and QT apps? I don't think so! Y's server-side toolkit will do no good if developers don't use it.
And frankly, all the Slashdot crowd does is pissing off developers. One even said developers should be slaves, and got modded up to +5! It's exactly because of this kind of attitude why Slashdot is preventing Linux from succeeding on the desktop: the belittleling of developers.
You don't have to worry about the graphics system. There are two forks of XFree86: Xouvert and XOrg. Both of them are 100% compatible with XFree86.
Look, if you want them to listen to you, then calm down and don't use CAPITALS or "????!!!!" all over the place. It makes you look like a zealot with emotional problems.
Anyway... a large part of the slowness over the network are caused by the toolkit and the apps, not by the protocol itself! QT and GTK do not use the X protocol efficiently.
Until the toolkits and apps are fixed, use NX compression. I heard it does wonders and makes Mozilla usable even over a modem.
Because more members and contributors means faster development of the X window system?
Come on, isn't this common sense?
The word "innovation" is so overused that it has lost it's meaning.
Just look at the comments in all the other articles. Slashdotters massively complain that Linux's GUI is too different from Windows's, and thus will fail on the desktop!
Uhm yeah Linux is playing catch up. So what? I'm very happy with Linux as my desktop OS, and I much prefer it over XP. I don't need the latest cool inventions, I want something that works, and works well.
I use Windows *only* for games. For everything else, I always find myself rebooting back to Linux.
Linux and open source do exactly what they're good at: making others' innovations available in a cheap way.
Seriously, almost nobody in computer land innovates. Microsoft? Not innovative. MacOS X? Combination of old ideas + some neat graphics effect. Everybody copies all sorts of stuff from each other. Nobody cares but the few geeks who use innovation as a buzzword agaist Linux.
My dad couldn't care less whether Linux is "innovative" or not. He uses Linux for browsing the Internet, and is happy with it.
I agree with you. Linux is ready for most average users who don't do much. The problem is that Slashdot doesn't recognize this! People will continue to flame down Linux (and get modded up!).
The quality app problem is a chiken & egg problem. Adobe won't port Photoshop until Linux has more users, and Linux won't have more users until Adobe ports Photoshop. Slashdotters don't recognize this either and continue to blame absolutely everything on Linux.
"- The Gimp is phenomenal, but how about those fonts? Sure, you can do lots and lots of cool things with just images, but graphics pros _need_ those slick fonts."
Have you tried Gimp 2? Download any truetype font you want, put it in ~/.fonts, and it'll work.
Typical anti-open source zealotry. When someone's criticising open source criticism, people like you can't take it.
No thanks, I'll save my money by using excellent open source software.
Dude, this is Slashdot. Don't you think this is an appropriate place to use jargon?
It's like going to a meeting for rocket scientists and then complain that they all use meaningless jargon.
No wonder nobody takes Slashdot seriously anymore: it's because of the belittleling and mindless bashing of anybody who's technical.
I think his comments make it appear like he's trying to personally insult everybody who works on open source software, with only one goal: the mental destruction of open source developers.
"This has been this way forever and windows still has 90% of the marketshare. People are willing to pay for windows."
You're kidding right? Most people either have Windows pre-installed, or use a pirated version of Windows. A lot of people pirate Windows! Especially take a look at teenagers - they pirate all sorts of other stuff too.
"Lack of major third party support?"
That's like blaming a poor man that he doesn't have tons of money.
Users won't use Linux until it gets major third party support, and major third parties will not support Linux until there are lots of users. Flaming Linux down for being in a chiken & egg situation is just stupid.
I'd say: who the hell cares who invented it? Linux (the kernel) is good, 2.6 has gotten a lot of improvements. I don't care whether you call it "innovation" or not - it's just good.
/SYS"
"Floppy disk formated with
What the... you compare Windows boot floppies with LiveCDs?! What when you put this floppy in a computer without Windows, or on a computer with a broken Windows install that doesn't want to boot?
"Every new release of a Linux distribution gets closer and closer to the latest Windows OS."
So? If that makes the user interface better then who cares whether it's innovative?
Innovation is overrrated.
But corporate desktops is where desktop domination begins. You don't begin targeting home users - you begin targeting corporate users. Once you have a good piece of market share on the corporate desktops, it'll be easier to extend to the home desktop.
Yes Linux has issues. These issues are constantly being worked on and are improving. Installing a printer for example is as simple as starting the printer configuration tool and have your printer autodetected. I don't have a digital camera but I heard that on desktop distros like Mandrake, the camera is automounted and an icon will automatically appear on the desktop.
My parents for example don't install software or hardware. They just use the computer to get on the Internet, that's it. Linux is a perfectly fine option for them - they're already using it.
But there are also other *huge* issues which are something Linux can't really do something about: the chicken & egg issues. Hardware support for example - hardware manufacturers won't support Linux until there are lots of users, and users won't use Linux until hardware manufacturers support it. Same thing for games and commercial apps.
"free as in warez"?? By that reasoning, what stops anyone from pirating Xandros?
Exactly. We're not there yet but we get closer every year. This is the thing that most Linux critics simply don't recognize: Linux keeps improving and gets closer and closer.
How do you know he doesn't use a GUI? Is that how you deal people deal with criticism - mod everybody who has no problems down as commandline geeks?
Ever since XFT2/fontconfig and the Bitstream Vera fonts have been released, I've been enjoying high-quality, subpixel antialiased fonts on my Linux desktop computer. I suggest you to upgrade to a modern distribution and use the Vera fonts.
Alternatives are not going away. What's wrong with making both GNOME and KDE so userfriendly that the user can find it's way no matter which desktop he's using?
Some people prefer simplicity while other people prefer power and bells & whistles. What's wrong with being able to choose what desktop you want based on your *preference*?
In case you don't want to choose - fine, use whatever default desktop is chosen by your distribution. You don't have to choose if you really don't want to.
As for standardizes interfaces: even Windows doesn't have standardized interfaces. Installers all look a little different from each other - fullscreen blue InstallShield, MSI, Win2k-style InstallShield, fullscreen Inno Setup, Win2k-style Inno Setup, WinSFX, WISE Installer, etc. etc.
An installation system that handles dependancies with no user interfaction is being worked on - see my sig. We're close to 1.0.
Yes, that's right.
You can just focus the address bar and press Ctrl+U, that will clear the entire text entry. Alternatively, you can also rightclick on the address bar and click Clear if you're using Galeon.
Middle click pasting is very useful when you don't have to delete anything and just want to paste.
According to the standard there are two seperated "clipboards" (or in technical terms, "selections") in X:
- PRIMAIRY: if you select something, it automatically gets put in this clipboard. If you middle click somewhere, the text from this clipboard is pasted.
- CLIPBOARD: Text is only put into this clipboard if you explicitly give the application a command to do so (for example, by pressing Ctrl+C or Edit->Copy). You can only paste from this clipboard by pressing Ctrl+V or Edit->Paste. This clipboard works almost identical to the Windows clipboard.
Again, PRIMAIRY and CLIPBOARD are two seperated clipboard. If you middle click somewhere, the app will only paste from PRIMAIRY, and if you press Ctrl+V, the app will only paste from CLIPBOARD.
At least, this is how it's supposed to work (according to the standard). Historically, people have been confused by the difference between PRIMAIRY and CLIPBOARD, and wrote broken apps. QT 1.x and 2.x for example copy everything to PRIMAIRY, even if you press Ctrl+C, while it's supposed to copy to CLIPBOARD. This has been fixed in QT 3.
Nowadays, most apps comply to the standard: this includes QT 3+, GTK 1.2+, Mozilla*, OpenOffice and Motif. There are still a few (not widely used fortunately) apps and toolkits left that are still broken.
In summary: if you press Ctrl+X/C/V or use the menus, the clipboard works exactly like in Windows. The middleclick option is just there for the power users who appriciate it, and is a completely seperated clipboard.
One thing a lot of people don't know is that the X clipboard mechanism does support more than just plain text. In fact, you can put more than one kind of data on the clipboard, just like in Windows. It's just that application developers don't use this feature often for some reason unknown to me.
Copy & Pasting of rich text or HTML between Mozilla and OpenOffice works (at least for me). Copy & Pasting between AbiWord and OpenOffice works.
Copy & pasting of images between seperate Gimp session does not work because Gimp doesn't even use the X clipboard. Why they do this is beyond me.
Who cares? It's fixed. Only trolls still go nitpicking about issues that have already been fixed instead of actually using the fixed versions. It's like people complaining that Windows finally have virtual desktops after 10 years, or that Linux finally has AA fonts after 10 years. Nobody cares but trolls.
OK this is a complicated issue but let me summarize it:
/ 2003-September/msg00257.html
;) http://members1.chello.nl/~h.lai/gnome-clipboard-d aemon/index.html
The X "clipboard" is actually an IPC mechanism and is a bit different from the (traditional!) Windows clipboard. When you click Paste in kedit, it actually asks gedit to transfer data to it. The advantage of this approach is that it is fast because data is only transferred when needed. The disadvantage is that if you close gedit (the "clipboard owner"), you can't paste anymore, because there is no app provide the data.
MS Windows actually has two clipboards: the traditional clipboard and the new clipboard. The old clipboard keeps the data in memory, that's why there's sometimes a (small) lag when you copy something. The new clipboard works very similar to the X clipboard: it's fast, but it gets lost if you close the app! Yes, Microsoft is moving to a X-like clipboard model. A lot of apps these days use a combination of the old and the new Windows clipboard.
For full details, see http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list
And about that daemon: that was written by me.
I don't agree. This is Slashdot, I'm supposed to be able to say fork() here and have people understand me. If this is a non-technical site then I wouldn't have used term. But the point is, this *is* a technical site, I'm supposed to be allowed to use jargon.