"and some may even be quite logical, p for play/pause, f for fast forward. But what about full screen? F is already taken, maybe s then for screen, but then what is stop? T?"
- Well, fast forward is even more logical: you use the left and right arrows keys. That's exactly like the video recorder. - P for pause is quite logical, but mplayer also supports the spacebar for pause/resume, which is exactly like in Windows Media Player. - F is for full screen, not fast forward. The title bar also explicitly tells you that F is for full screen. - Stop? Pause and resume use the same button, just like some video recorders, and just like Windows Media Player. If you want to exit mplayer, you can either press Q (for Quit) or Escape.
It takes no more than 30 seconds to memorize all these. Heck, I didn't even look at the manual when I first used mplayer. I intuitively felt than the left and right key arrows were for fast forwarding, so I tried - and I was right. I intuitively felt that P is for pause and resume - and I was right. I knew Windows Media Player uses the spacebar too, so I tried that out - it worked too. I intuitively felt that Q and Escape must be for quitting - and I was right. And once you know it, it's *much* easier than moving the mouse each time you want to pause/fast forward.
You can't have a Linux that's easier than the Mac, simply because nobody controls the x86 hardware market. Buy some piece of hardware and it will not always work - not even on Windows!
Mplayer doesn't have to be a skin manager if you don't want it to. By default, it isn't compiled with GUI support. So mplayer will have exactly what every video player is supposed to have - a window with *only* the video in it. Pausing and fast forwarding using the keyboard is easier, faster, and intuitive.
Firefox *is* faster than Mozilla 1.6 (and Galeon using Mozilla 1.6). Try loading a large page like http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/ libc.html When loading in Mozilla, my CPU usage was at 100% for 22 seconds. When loading in Firefox, 100% CPU usage lasted for 16 seconds.
"How about new extensions? How about when XFree and XOrg each implement new extensions providing similar but slightly different functionality? How about when one extension doesn't work quite the same way in both, for whatever reason?"
This isn't Microsoft vs Netscape. Extensions are documented. People will submit bug reports about that either XFree86 or XOrg's implementation doesn't comply to the standard, and they'll fix it. In case *all* developers of a certain project refuses to fix it, then two things can happen: 1. App developers will refuse to use this extension. 2. Someone who cares enough (might even be a paid developers who works for a distributor!) will write a patch and fix it.
"Ha! Linux autoconfiguration has a looong way to go before it'll be comparable to Windoze in that respect."
If you're talking about things like printers and scanners, then yes. But video cards, no way. On all systems I've installed Linux on, the video card is always automatically detected, out-of-the-box. I think you haven't used Linux for several years. I installed Fedora Core not too long ago and allhardware, except my printer, was autodetected and autoconfigured. Everything worked out of the box, and that includes my Internet connection. The only thing not autodetected was my printer, but setting it up as as simple as launching the Printer Setup tool in the menus, click New Printer and select the manufacturer and model (ho wait stop! read on before you say Windows autodetects this)
And if you think Windows XP's autodetection is god-like then you're wrong. I bought a printer, installed the driver, and... it doesn't work! After 5 reboots and messing with the configuration panel, I finally got it to work (somehow). Windows is not as perfect as you think. It has it's own big bunch of hardware problems.
"For now, yes. Want to guarantee that forever?"
If an X server is incompatible, do you think: 1. It will survive long enough, and gain a large enough userbase, to fragmentate everything? 2. That nobody will ever fix the incompatibility?
Again, this isn't Microsoft vs Netscape who try to kill each other using incompatibilities.
"The difference is that, in a Windows world, nobody has to ask the question, "what kind of windowing software should I use?""
And why would that same end user care what windowing system he uses on Linux? Why would he even have to know what a windowing system is? It's all compatible. I tried out FD.o's Xserver (not XOrg) and GNOME worked just like in XFree86. I didn't even need to recompile anything.
"Or, IMO, much worse yet, "what kind of windowing system should I develop my application for?""
That's just nonsense. You develop for GTK or QT. The underlying windowing system is completely abstracted away so the programmer doesn't even have to care. And you develop for X11. Even if distros switch to XOrg, you *still* develop for X11. All your old X apps will work on XOrg.
"Again, this is both a huge strength and a huge weakness for Linux. Choice is good for us geeks, but in terms of mainstream, desktop acceptance, it's a turnoff for most people."
I don't agree with your idea of what the consequences of choice are. See my previous points. Choice does not equal incompatibilities! Also, having a choice doesn't mean that you must chooce!
"There's the perpetual question in the back, "Did I make the right choice here? Am I just going to have to install some completely different version in a few months? If I have problems and want to get help from IRC, are the people there going to be able to help me out or will I be laughed at for my choice of windowing software?"
You're creating more problems than there really are.
First of all, if people laugh at you for the software you choce then you're at the wrong place anyway. Big deal, zealots can be everywhere. Move on to a more friendly channel or web foru
So why do you expect volunteers to do everything for you? They do it for free. If you want a feature and they don't want or can't implement it, then you can either wait until they can/will or do it yourself.
Remember, they aren't getting paid. If they *are* paid then that's another story.
"Yes, obviously, but what extensions will the new one end up supporting?"
There are a number of extensions which are widely accepted as de-facto standard extensions. For example, all serious modern X server implement the XShape extension.
Anybody who's serious about making a replacement for XFree86 will implement at least GLX, XRender, XVideo, Xinerama, etc.
"Which drivers will end up working well?"
All of them. XOrg is a fork of XFree86. Your NVidia drivers work under XOrg, as pointed out by a post earlier.
"How will it end up being configured? Which little quirk exists in one but not the other?"
Do you really think distros won't take care of automatic hardware detection and automatic X configuration before they release the thing to the public?
"Where does your average end-user go for support?"
How about the distributor? They provide professional support. Of course you can also go to Linux web forums for free community support. The same applies to Windows too.
"I'm having a problem with X?" "What sort of X?"
"I'm having a problem with Windows." "What Windows version?" Windows is no different, but I don't hear anyone complain that there are so many versions of Windows out there.
Most of the problems you mentioned only occur if distros are lazy and don't make a good migration path.
All the things you mentioned can be fixed without breaking the X protocol. I see more use in fixing those things in X rather than rewriting everything from scratch.
As opposed to the 10 million text editors available for Windows? 6 different Windows versions?
This isn't even fragmentation. It's just another implementation of the same standard. All your apps will still work, no matter what X server you run! X is a *standard*. End users won't even notice something has changed.
When Linux "fragmentates" everybody screams "fragmentation! linux sucks! bla bla bla" but when Microsoft releases yet-another-implement-of-something, nobody complains. Go figure.
Exactly, I couldn't agree more. I've written Windows apps for years, and the number of machines on which one of my apps doesn't work for some reason is higher than what the Linux-bashing Slashdot crowd thinks.
The core protocol is already sufficient for most 2D operations. A lot of extensions are de-facto standards. There is no modern serieus X server that doesn't support XShape, for example. Render is supported by XFree86 4 and Sun's X server. But the most popular toolkits that use XRender, GTK and QT, both have fallback functions in case the X server doesn't support XRender. So all my modern GNOME 2 apps still run happily on my dad's Linux box with XFree86 3.3.6. I've never, ever seen a program crash because an extension isn't available, except if that program relies 100% on a specific features (such as OpenGL programs, and GLX is not supported on your X server). The extension problem is exaggerated. X servers and clients have a high degree of interoperability.
As for drivers: do you expect Win95 drivers to work on XP? Heck even Win2k drivers won't always work on XP. Besides, XOrg is just a fork of XFree86. Porting drivers over isn't hard, and that's assuming they even broke binary compatibility in the first place!
"Yeah, X11 is about as standard these days as HTML."
Yet I can still see 99.9% of all websites with Mozilla.
I'd say the X11 standard is more enforced than HTML. Almost nobody write programs that talk to the core protocol directly. Everything is abstracted away in toolkits. I don't know a single X client that doesn't fully comply to the protocol standard.
Who modded up this as "Insightful"? It's nothing more than clueless bashing.
X11 is a standard, not an implementation! Just like HTML is a standard! That distro A uses XFree86 and distro B uses XOrg means absolutely nothing to end users. Everything's still interoperable because X11 is a standard. Everything will still Just Work(tm) and the end user won't even notice something has changed.
"Thousands of users: Please give us an option to use MDI. GIMP zealot: We can't use MDI, it confuses people. Users: We only want an option, you don't have to make it compulsory! Zealot: Sorry, it's confusing. You don't want it. Users: Yes we do. Zealot: Well you can't have it. Get over it. Users: Fuck this, we're going back to Windows."
Translation:
Anonymous troll zealot: I pretend that thousands of users wants MDI without giving evidence. You suck mwahahaha! Apple usability engineer: Photoshop on MacOS X uses lots of windows too, just like Gimp!
Guess what? Photoshop on the Mac uses tons of windows too, just like Gimp! Why don't Mac people complain? Because MacOS X's "window manager" can manage lots of associated windows properly. That's what we need for Linux, not window-in-window MDI. Being able to Alt+Tab between document windows is a huge plus. In Windows you have to click the friggin Window menu just to switch to another document.
You definitely have never used Gimp 2. There's a "goddamned" global menu bar! And thanks to the new docking system there are fewer tool windows now. The interface got a huge upgrade. Everything looks slick, clean and beautiful.
I find Gimp's MDI to be a lot less annoying than the window-in-window MDI! I can Alt+Tab between documents *and* I can use the tasklist to switch between windows. Combined with virtual desktops, Gimp's MDI is exactly like Windows's but plus the advantage of being able to Alt+Tab and use the tasklist.
And your argument with the newbie isn't a good one. Put your mom behind Paint Shop Pro and she'll get confused. Put *any* newbie with no prior experience with image editing apps and they'll get confused. Heck it took me a few months to figure out how to work with PSP properly.
I've used Paint Shop Pro. I much, much prefer Gimp. Especially with Gimp 2.0, Gimp has far surpassed Paint Shop Pro in both interface and functionality, except maybe vector support (which I don't need at all). Gimp's tools and interface are better and a lot less annoying. I can for example tear off any menu item I want. In PSP I have to go through that deep menu structure over and over. I've discovered years ago that I'm much more productive with Gimp than Paint Shop Pro.
Slashdot Mirror
Photoshop on the Mac uses floating windows too, just like Gimp.
Oh wait, what's that I hear? So because Photoshop on the Mac does the same thing, it's suddenly allright? No wonder people flame you zealots down.
"and some may even be quite logical, p for play/pause, f for fast forward. But what about full screen? F is already taken, maybe s then for screen, but then what is stop? T?"
- Well, fast forward is even more logical: you use the left and right arrows keys. That's exactly like the video recorder.
- P for pause is quite logical, but mplayer also supports the spacebar for pause/resume, which is exactly like in Windows Media Player.
- F is for full screen, not fast forward. The title bar also explicitly tells you that F is for full screen.
- Stop? Pause and resume use the same button, just like some video recorders, and just like Windows Media Player. If you want to exit mplayer, you can either press Q (for Quit) or Escape.
It takes no more than 30 seconds to memorize all these. Heck, I didn't even look at the manual when I first used mplayer. I intuitively felt than the left and right key arrows were for fast forwarding, so I tried - and I was right. I intuitively felt that P is for pause and resume - and I was right. I knew Windows Media Player uses the spacebar too, so I tried that out - it worked too. I intuitively felt that Q and Escape must be for quitting - and I was right.
And once you know it, it's *much* easier than moving the mouse each time you want to pause/fast forward.
You can't have a Linux that's easier than the Mac, simply because nobody controls the x86 hardware market. Buy some piece of hardware and it will not always work - not even on Windows!
Mplayer doesn't have to be a skin manager if you don't want it to. By default, it isn't compiled with GUI support. So mplayer will have exactly what every video player is supposed to have - a window with *only* the video in it. Pausing and fast forwarding using the keyboard is easier, faster, and intuitive.
Firefox *is* faster than Mozilla 1.6 (and Galeon using Mozilla 1.6). Try loading a large page like http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/ libc.html
When loading in Mozilla, my CPU usage was at 100% for 22 seconds. When loading in Firefox, 100% CPU usage lasted for 16 seconds.
What "facts"? It's a whitepaper. Whether those *speculations* are really true remains to be seen. Until Y has proven itself I'm not convinced.
"Have fun editing "XF86Config" to get a mousewheel working."
No need to. My mousewheel was automatically detect and configured. I didn't touch XF86Config *at all*.
"How about new extensions? How about when XFree and XOrg each implement new extensions providing similar but slightly different functionality? How about when one extension doesn't work quite the same way in both, for whatever reason?"
This isn't Microsoft vs Netscape. Extensions are documented. People will submit bug reports about that either XFree86 or XOrg's implementation doesn't comply to the standard, and they'll fix it. In case *all* developers of a certain project refuses to fix it, then two things can happen:
1. App developers will refuse to use this extension.
2. Someone who cares enough (might even be a paid developers who works for a distributor!) will write a patch and fix it.
"Ha! Linux autoconfiguration has a looong way to go before it'll be comparable to Windoze in that respect."
If you're talking about things like printers and scanners, then yes. But video cards, no way. On all systems I've installed Linux on, the video card is always automatically detected, out-of-the-box. I think you haven't used Linux for several years.
I installed Fedora Core not too long ago and allhardware, except my printer, was autodetected and autoconfigured. Everything worked out of the box, and that includes my Internet connection. The only thing not autodetected was my printer, but setting it up as as simple as launching the Printer Setup tool in the menus, click New Printer and select the manufacturer and model (ho wait stop! read on before you say Windows autodetects this)
And if you think Windows XP's autodetection is god-like then you're wrong. I bought a printer, installed the driver, and... it doesn't work! After 5 reboots and messing with the configuration panel, I finally got it to work (somehow).
Windows is not as perfect as you think. It has it's own big bunch of hardware problems.
"For now, yes. Want to guarantee that forever?"
If an X server is incompatible, do you think:
1. It will survive long enough, and gain a large enough userbase, to fragmentate everything?
2. That nobody will ever fix the incompatibility?
Again, this isn't Microsoft vs Netscape who try to kill each other using incompatibilities.
"The difference is that, in a Windows world, nobody has to ask the question, "what kind of windowing software should I use?""
And why would that same end user care what windowing system he uses on Linux? Why would he even have to know what a windowing system is? It's all compatible.
I tried out FD.o's Xserver (not XOrg) and GNOME worked just like in XFree86. I didn't even need to recompile anything.
"Or, IMO, much worse yet, "what kind of windowing system should I develop my application for?""
That's just nonsense. You develop for GTK or QT. The underlying windowing system is completely abstracted away so the programmer doesn't even have to care.
And you develop for X11. Even if distros switch to XOrg, you *still* develop for X11. All your old X apps will work on XOrg.
"Again, this is both a huge strength and a huge weakness for Linux. Choice is good for us geeks, but in terms of mainstream, desktop acceptance, it's a turnoff for most people."
I don't agree with your idea of what the consequences of choice are. See my previous points.
Choice does not equal incompatibilities! Also, having a choice doesn't mean that you must chooce!
"There's the perpetual question in the back, "Did I make the right choice here? Am I just going to have to install some completely different version in a few months? If I have problems and want to get help from IRC, are the people there going to be able to help me out or will I be laughed at for my choice of windowing software?"
You're creating more problems than there really are.
First of all, if people laugh at you for the software you choce then you're at the wrong place anyway. Big deal, zealots can be everywhere. Move on to a more friendly channel or web foru
I read it a long time ago. I'm not convinced.
So why do you expect volunteers to do everything for you? They do it for free. If you want a feature and they don't want or can't implement it, then you can either wait until they can/will or do it yourself.
Remember, they aren't getting paid. If they *are* paid then that's another story.
If you don't want to choose, then don't. Select "default install" or whatever, click Next and wait.
Not having to choose is also a choice you have.
"Yes, obviously, but what extensions will the new one end up supporting?"
There are a number of extensions which are widely accepted as de-facto standard extensions. For example, all serious modern X server implement the XShape extension.
Anybody who's serious about making a replacement for XFree86 will implement at least GLX, XRender, XVideo, Xinerama, etc.
"Which drivers will end up working well?"
All of them. XOrg is a fork of XFree86. Your NVidia drivers work under XOrg, as pointed out by a post earlier.
"How will it end up being configured? Which little quirk exists in one but not the other?"
Do you really think distros won't take care of automatic hardware detection and automatic X configuration before they release the thing to the public?
"Where does your average end-user go for support?"
How about the distributor? They provide professional support.
Of course you can also go to Linux web forums for free community support. The same applies to Windows too.
"I'm having a problem with X?" "What sort of X?"
"I'm having a problem with Windows." "What Windows version?"
Windows is no different, but I don't hear anyone complain that there are so many versions of Windows out there.
Most of the problems you mentioned only occur if distros are lazy and don't make a good migration path.
All the things you mentioned can be fixed without breaking the X protocol.
I see more use in fixing those things in X rather than rewriting everything from scratch.
As opposed to the 10 million text editors available for Windows? 6 different Windows versions?
This isn't even fragmentation. It's just another implementation of the same standard. All your apps will still work, no matter what X server you run! X is a *standard*. End users won't even notice something has changed.
When Linux "fragmentates" everybody screams "fragmentation! linux sucks! bla bla bla" but when Microsoft releases yet-another-implement-of-something, nobody complains. Go figure.
Exactly, I couldn't agree more. I've written Windows apps for years, and the number of machines on which one of my apps doesn't work for some reason is higher than what the Linux-bashing Slashdot crowd thinks.
The core protocol is already sufficient for most 2D operations. A lot of extensions are de-facto standards. There is no modern serieus X server that doesn't support XShape, for example.
Render is supported by XFree86 4 and Sun's X server. But the most popular toolkits that use XRender, GTK and QT, both have fallback functions in case the X server doesn't support XRender. So all my modern GNOME 2 apps still run happily on my dad's Linux box with XFree86 3.3.6.
I've never, ever seen a program crash because an extension isn't available, except if that program relies 100% on a specific features (such as OpenGL programs, and GLX is not supported on your X server). The extension problem is exaggerated. X servers and clients have a high degree of interoperability.
As for drivers: do you expect Win95 drivers to work on XP? Heck even Win2k drivers won't always work on XP.
Besides, XOrg is just a fork of XFree86. Porting drivers over isn't hard, and that's assuming they even broke binary compatibility in the first place!
"Yeah, X11 is about as standard these days as HTML."
Yet I can still see 99.9% of all websites with Mozilla.
I'd say the X11 standard is more enforced than HTML. Almost nobody write programs that talk to the core protocol directly. Everything is abstracted away in toolkits. I don't know a single X client that doesn't fully comply to the protocol standard.
You said it yourself: the problem was that browsers implemented the HTML standard differently. Not so for X servers: they all behave the same way.
Who modded up this as "Insightful"? It's nothing more than clueless bashing.
X11 is a standard, not an implementation! Just like HTML is a standard!
That distro A uses XFree86 and distro B uses XOrg means absolutely nothing to end users. Everything's still interoperable because X11 is a standard. Everything will still Just Work(tm) and the end user won't even notice something has changed.
That's what the XRender and Xft are for! They are full replacements for the old rendering model and font subsystem.
Yes let's completely forget that the reported RSS memory usage also includes shared memory.
The problem is mostly that debugging information is huge (for some reason). If you turn off -g, linking will be *much* faster.
When I was compiling Gimp 2, it took 2 minutes to link the binary, and it was 40+ MB! I turned off debugging and it took 5 seconds or so.
Gimp 2.0 gives you an option to make tool windows not appear on the task list. Only documents and the main tool window will show up in the task list.
"Thousands of users: Please give us an option to use MDI.
GIMP zealot: We can't use MDI, it confuses people.
Users: We only want an option, you don't have to make it compulsory!
Zealot: Sorry, it's confusing. You don't want it.
Users: Yes we do.
Zealot: Well you can't have it. Get over it.
Users: Fuck this, we're going back to Windows."
Translation:
Anonymous troll zealot: I pretend that thousands of users wants MDI without giving evidence. You suck mwahahaha!
Apple usability engineer: Photoshop on MacOS X uses lots of windows too, just like Gimp!
Guess what? Photoshop on the Mac uses tons of windows too, just like Gimp! Why don't Mac people complain? Because MacOS X's "window manager" can manage lots of associated windows properly. That's what we need for Linux, not window-in-window MDI.
Being able to Alt+Tab between document windows is a huge plus. In Windows you have to click the friggin Window menu just to switch to another document.
Actually, we at the Autopackage project recognize this problem and have already made a solution. See apbuild.
You definitely have never used Gimp 2. There's a "goddamned" global menu bar! And thanks to the new docking system there are fewer tool windows now. The interface got a huge upgrade. Everything looks slick, clean and beautiful.
I find Gimp's MDI to be a lot less annoying than the window-in-window MDI! I can Alt+Tab between documents *and* I can use the tasklist to switch between windows. Combined with virtual desktops, Gimp's MDI is exactly like Windows's but plus the advantage of being able to Alt+Tab and use the tasklist.
And your argument with the newbie isn't a good one. Put your mom behind Paint Shop Pro and she'll get confused. Put *any* newbie with no prior experience with image editing apps and they'll get confused. Heck it took me a few months to figure out how to work with PSP properly.
I've used Paint Shop Pro. I much, much prefer Gimp. Especially with Gimp 2.0, Gimp has far surpassed Paint Shop Pro in both interface and functionality, except maybe vector support (which I don't need at all).
Gimp's tools and interface are better and a lot less annoying. I can for example tear off any menu item I want. In PSP I have to go through that deep menu structure over and over. I've discovered years ago that I'm much more productive with Gimp than Paint Shop Pro.