Linux does eveything I want, and everything lots of other Linux users I know want. I have a smaller range of apps available, but no crapware, no malware, a choice of desktop environments, easy software installation, easy security updates, no vendor lockin, etc.
Sounds a pretty good trade off to me. Was this your point?
You do not need to. I know of no distro that installs two heavy desktop environments by default, although I think some install a lightweight alternative by default. This uses a minimal amount of hard drive space, and no other resources. I can think of none that install that many word processors and web browsers by default/
a whole bunch of image editors, system utilities, file managers, and other stuff
Would you never find a use for all that. Crapware, is stuff you do not want, like toolbars, limited tiem trial software, etc.
[quote]I always install a PDF printer[/quote] What sort of OS does not install a way of producing PDFs by default. It does not sound ready for the desktop to me. [quote]Short of PDF, I don't know what else you'd use... XPS? XPS is just as bad as PDF, except it's from Microsoft instead of Adobe. Wait... does that make it as bad, or worse? Nobody uses XPS[/quote] Worse. I do not much like Adobe, but PDF has been an open format for a long time and it Adobe looks unlikely to do anything nasty with it now. Also, is there much third party support for XPS. I know you can read it with Okular or Ghostscript, but what about writing XPS?
There are two questions there. Why people hare have Scientology, and why they hate religion in general.
The answer to the second question is about the haters. It is partly an American reaction to widespread (compared to anywhere else in the world other than the Middle East) fundamentalism. It is also partly based on ignorance: Slashdot is full of anti-religious straw man arguments.
The answer to the second is question lies in the way Scientology behaves. It is secretive (what other religions has secret scriptures: most try to give them away free), it asks for large, specific sums of money from individuals, it claims spiritual progress depends on spending money, it sometimes pretends not to be a religion, its beliefs are downrigt bizzare. The worst thing it does is to silence criticism.
Watch the South park episode on Scientology. It is pretty accurate.
Ubuntu or Mandriva is better than Windows for naive users: the people who find it difficult are Windows "power users" who have spent years learning Window thoroughly at the level of "to do x, click, a, then click b, then click c".
I can let my six year old daughter install software unsupervised on Linux. If I did that with Windows I would end up with a malware ridden machine.
1) It tends to be obscure stuff than only slightly geeky users want (i..e. the sort of people who know how to check things) 2) It often comes with some way of checking (e.g. checksums) that you get the real download. 3) A user who has downloaded one app from an untrusted site is much less likely to have downloaded malware than someone who has downloaded fifty.
So why there so little targeted at Linux servers, where its market share is high? Especially as many Linux servers are run by less than expert admins in VMs running websites etc.
Your argument also fails to explain the huge discrepancy in malware numbers. There is very little Linux malware.
Assume:
1) Linux has 1% or so desktop market share (and it has at least that) 2) It has been more sucessfull in developed countries (where it has a price advantage - no one pays for software in the third world anyway) 3) Compromised machines are more valuable in developed countries (do some research into botnet pricing if you do not believe me)
So why does Linux not even 1% of desktop malware?
As a user, why should I care about why I do not get malware. The fact that I do not is a huge advantage of Linux
He could not find the software installer in the start menu. He needs a geek friend to help him with his computer regardless of what OS he uses. In some ways, something that can be locked down for him like Linux may be more suitable. Its much the same way that my wife and kids use Linux.
On the other hand, why a naive user is installing a LAMP stack is not apparent to me.
I am currently using Mepis on my laptop, and PCLinuxOS on the family desktop.
My laptop had lots of problems with Kubuntu and MInt (which is Ubuntu dervied) and all of the problems with Mint came from Ubuntu.
I have used Mandriva in the past, and like it a lot. It has had very few hardware problems, it has a reasonably big repo (that is a problem with PCLinuxOS) and a helpful community (though its a pity Adam Williamson is no longer there).
Mepis is pretty good as well. It has the advantage of the huge Debian stable repos with more up to date apps in its own repos. There is an annoying EULA on installation though.
I have never had things break on a routine upgrade, and only once had things break on an upgrade to a new version of the distro (a few years ago Ubuntu broke X on some machines on an upgrade). No one I know has complained of it happening, and
It happens, but it has not happened to anyone I know (except that one time to me) and I have never seen a mention of it on a LUG mailing list I am on, so "frequently" sounds over the top.
There are good reasons for jointly taxing married couples, the same reason that economists talk of households rather than individuals - they are one unit financially. Inverting it, should the unemployed spouse of a billionaire get welfare? If not, tac should be consistent with benefits.
Another example, two couples, each with two kids, in one case both people earn $50,000 a year, in the other case one earns $100,000 a year but has a spose that stays at home and looks after the kids, I see no reason the latter ( with the same income for the familly) should pay higher tax.
At that point writing letters will probably be declared a suspicious activity that indicates you are a terrorists, or all letters will have to identify the sender and recipient, and be scanned by the post office before posting.
OK, I know what you mean, but every time creationism is discussed it gives a bad name to people who have nothing to do with it. No religion should be blamed for every heresy spun off from it - you would not blame Aum Shinrikyo's whacko ideas on Buddhism, would you?
7 day creation, 6000 years old, giant wierd flood, space made of water
1) None of those claims is part of Christianity. Biblical literalism rejected by theologians of the early church (e.g. St Augustine in the 4th century) 2) Your argument is fallacious in any case as disproving one claim does not disprove any other claim not dependent on it. As far as I know no one has ever disproved any of the essential teaching of Christianity (and some, like original sin, appear to have been proved).
Slashdot Mirror
OS upgrades can go wrong with any OS.
That said, Ubuntu seems to have more problems than the other distros I have tried.
The non-Adobe PDF creators do not implement feature that no-one uses.
Linux does eveything I want, and everything lots of other Linux users I know want. I have a smaller range of apps available, but no crapware, no malware, a choice of desktop environments, easy software installation, easy security updates, no vendor lockin, etc.
Sounds a pretty good trade off to me. Was this your point?
You do not need to. I know of no distro that installs two heavy desktop environments by default, although I think some install a lightweight alternative by default. This uses a minimal amount of hard drive space, and no other resources. I can think of none that install that many word processors and web browsers by default/
a whole bunch of image editors, system utilities, file managers, and other stuff
Would you never find a use for all that. Crapware, is stuff you do not want, like toolbars, limited tiem trial software, etc.
MS would distribute their own version of every app if they could.
Linux distros distribute a version, almost always someone else's, of every app, and include as many alternatives as possible in the repos.
See the difference from the point of view of consumer choice?
The other difference is that Linux repos include far more than any one company even one the size of MS, can produce.
[quote]I always install a PDF printer[/quote]
What sort of OS does not install a way of producing PDFs by default. It does not sound ready for the desktop to me.
[quote]Short of PDF, I don't know what else you'd use... XPS? XPS is just as bad as PDF, except it's from Microsoft instead of Adobe. Wait... does that make it as bad, or worse? Nobody uses XPS[/quote]
Worse. I do not much like Adobe, but PDF has been an open format for a long time and it Adobe looks unlikely to do anything nasty with it now. Also, is there much third party support for XPS. I know you can read it with Okular or Ghostscript, but what about writing XPS?
There are two questions there. Why people hare have Scientology, and why they hate religion in general.
The answer to the second question is about the haters. It is partly an American reaction to widespread (compared to anywhere else in the world other than the Middle East) fundamentalism. It is also partly based on ignorance: Slashdot is full of anti-religious straw man arguments.
The answer to the second is question lies in the way Scientology behaves. It is secretive (what other religions has secret scriptures: most try to give them away free), it asks for large, specific sums of money from individuals, it claims spiritual progress depends on spending money, it sometimes pretends not to be a religion, its beliefs are downrigt bizzare. The worst thing it does is to silence criticism.
Watch the South park episode on Scientology. It is pretty accurate.
IS there any OS that is moron proof?
Ubuntu or Mandriva is better than Windows for naive users: the people who find it difficult are Windows "power users" who have spent years learning Window thoroughly at the level of "to do x, click, a, then click b, then click c".
I can let my six year old daughter install software unsupervised on Linux. If I did that with Windows I would end up with a malware ridden machine.
A hijacker would also have to forge signatures.
The other is a problem, but:
1) It tends to be obscure stuff than only slightly geeky users want (i..e. the sort of people who know how to check things)
2) It often comes with some way of checking (e.g. checksums) that you get the real download.
3) A user who has downloaded one app from an untrusted site is much less likely to have downloaded malware than someone who has downloaded fifty.
So why there so little targeted at Linux servers, where its market share is high? Especially as many Linux servers are run by less than expert admins in VMs running websites etc.
Your argument also fails to explain the huge discrepancy in malware numbers. There is very little Linux malware.
Assume:
1) Linux has 1% or so desktop market share (and it has at least that)
2) It has been more sucessfull in developed countries (where it has a price advantage - no one pays for software in the third world anyway)
3) Compromised machines are more valuable in developed countries (do some research into botnet pricing if you do not believe me)
So why does Linux not even 1% of desktop malware?
As a user, why should I care about why I do not get malware. The fact that I do not is a huge advantage of Linux
By that logc, you should not blame Linux is a driver does not exist, or is not full featured, for some piece of hardware.
Lots of users do solve these issues, or never run into them.
I am no sysadmin, but I ahve been using Linux for 7 or 8 years. My father users Linux, I have installed Linux for friends, etc.
Why should we have special laws just so you make that money?
We had songs (and good ones) before copyright.
He could not find the software installer in the start menu. He needs a geek friend to help him with his computer regardless of what OS he uses. In some ways, something that can be locked down for him like Linux may be more suitable. Its much the same way that my wife and kids use Linux.
On the other hand, why a naive user is installing a LAMP stack is not apparent to me.
I am currently using Mepis on my laptop, and PCLinuxOS on the family desktop.
My laptop had lots of problems with Kubuntu and MInt (which is Ubuntu dervied) and all of the problems with Mint came from Ubuntu.
I have used Mandriva in the past, and like it a lot. It has had very few hardware problems, it has a reasonably big repo (that is a problem with PCLinuxOS) and a helpful community (though its a pity Adam Williamson is no longer there).
Mepis is pretty good as well. It has the advantage of the huge Debian stable repos with more up to date apps in its own repos. There is an annoying EULA on installation though.
I have never had things break on a routine upgrade, and only once had things break on an upgrade to a new version of the distro (a few years ago Ubuntu broke X on some machines on an upgrade). No one I know has complained of it happening, and
It happens, but it has not happened to anyone I know (except that one time to me) and I have never seen a mention of it on a LUG mailing list I am on, so "frequently" sounds over the top.
Mythic beasts have been using Mac-Minis and even Apple TVs for web hosting for years.
I have never used them myself, but it looks interesting.
Every single .doc I have open in Open Office recently has been fine.
I am sure there are problems, but, there being problems with most documents is not credible.
Depends what for. Oracle is sometimes used for jobs that MySQL could do, that does not mean that MySQL can do everything Oracle can do.
The problem is that it opens people to pressure.
There are good reasons for jointly taxing married couples, the same reason that economists talk of households rather than individuals - they are one unit financially. Inverting it, should the unemployed spouse of a billionaire get welfare? If not, tac should be consistent with benefits.
Another example, two couples, each with two kids, in one case both people earn $50,000 a year, in the other case one earns $100,000 a year but has a spose that stays at home and looks after the kids, I see no reason the latter ( with the same income for the familly) should pay higher tax.
At that point writing letters will probably be declared a suspicious activity that indicates you are a terrorists, or all letters will have to identify the sender and recipient, and be scanned by the post office before posting.
Exactly like Goldstein, right down to having previously been on Big Brother's side, and that fact never being mentioned.
We all know (don't we?) that web metrics are inflated by mostly everybody (hits and unique visitors counting search engines as real users,
Really? I find it hard to think of a web stats service or log file analyser that does not show traffic from search engines separately.
Do you think creationists are rally driven by something as sophisticated as mysticism:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mysticism/
OK, I know what you mean, but every time creationism is discussed it gives a bad name to people who have nothing to do with it. No religion should be blamed for every heresy spun off from it - you would not blame Aum Shinrikyo's whacko ideas on Buddhism, would you?
7 day creation, 6000 years old, giant wierd flood, space made of water
1) None of those claims is part of Christianity. Biblical literalism rejected by theologians of the early church (e.g. St Augustine in the 4th century)
2) Your argument is fallacious in any case as disproving one claim does not disprove any other claim not dependent on it. As far as I know no one has ever disproved any of the essential teaching of Christianity (and some, like original sin, appear to have been proved).