I am not sure about disk usage, but it hardly shows up in top. And talk about functional, it really can't be beat.
It can save your ass when X takes a dump (not too often, but it does happen). And it can run in a terminal when X is working.
I spent considerable time looking for a "pretty" replacement for mc, and eventually gave up. Nothing managed to do everything that mc does as quickly, as easily and conveniently. There are some nice file managers out there, but every one I tried wound up lacking something that I really like about mc.
Opera is my browser of choice, because what memory and disk space it does use pays off in performance. For documents that don't need the OO capabilities, AbiWord is great.
I also regularly use Xfig and pcb (although pcb understandably requires at least a little horsepower to run). XV is surprisingly capable for a viewer, even though it looks a tad ugly by today's standards.
Before AfterStep got all clunky and slow (at least around the time they made the transition to 2.0), I used it. Now I use Fluxbox. I still use fetchmail and pine. When alpine comes a little further along, I'll probably give it a try.
The one solid disappointment for me has been Tux racer. I have never really been able to successfully play that game with any kind of responsiveness on anything but a powerful machine. I remember it being included in the Red Hat 5.2 distribution and there was no way it would play on my 120 MHz 486 with 32 MB of RAM. Ah, the good old days...
I agree that the ads are not good and can alienate people. It appears to me that the ads merely preach to the converted. They don't get the benefits of the Mac across and why a person should buy them. To some people they may be cute, but I got rather tired of them fairly quickly. Here are the major selling points that they should be pushing, practical things that can sell a good product:
1) The price might seem to be a little more than a PC, but you generally get a higher-quality piece of equipment. Add the cost of an Internet Security Suite (most people will foolishly lay out money for Norton or something like that) and the added cost of various other utilities you will buy, and you have pricing comparable to a Mac.
2) They require less maintanence than a PC. And your time is worth money.
3) They are as user-friendly as a computer can get these days. It is a simple matter to change stuff and add programs. Not always so with Windows.
4) They are reliable. This again is a Time-Is-Money issue.
You don't need to say anything abut the operating system in those ads. Your average guy on the street who uses a computer wants a tool or a toy. They are buying a computer, not an operating system. When people want to buy a computer and ask for my advice, they never ask me what kind of operating system they should buy. They ask me what brand of computer to buy.
The previously mentioned selling points are the very reasons I told my late-30's contractor friend and his wife to buy a Mac when they asked me "What kind of computer should I buy?". They were especially glad they did when they saw what happened to his buddy's PC computer running Windows XP. And what his buddy will have to do to keep it operating. For him, it is the simplest and best way to run a computer. For me, it is fewer Sundays running Anti-Spyware programs in a month and trying to troubleshoot other problems over the phone.
I use Slackware myself and am perfectly comfortable here. I doubt my friend will be that comfortable with Linux ever, and that's OK by me. But the end result is that this is one less Windows machine out there, and it has everything to do with the total Apple experience. And they did a much better job of putting a concept into product than Microsoft ever did.
It is just silly that a company can be as large as Microsoft, have talented people working for them, and still has to send the big guy out to lie to everyone when they launch a major new product. And if he ever wants to talk about "borrowing" ideas, he need to look no further than his mirror.
OK, I will give an answer to the question as best as I can. I suspect that all depends upon the longevity of the Ubuntu organization itself. And how it matures.
People have noted that it takes longer than the usual amount of time for Ubuntu to issue patches, that perhaps has to do with compatibility testing and dealing with their package management system.
I have installed Ubuntu for a few people and generally like what I see in terms of usability for your average computer user who really is not all that computer literate. However, there are a few issues that will occasionally come up and could stymie an unassisted home installer. In an enterprise setting with a full-time IT department that has thoroughly "vetted" the install, I suspect that this would be less of a problem than it would be for Joe home user. Updates and maintenence for an enterprise are generally a lot more tricky than for the home user, due to specific applications that are used in an enterprise setting, conflicts, etc.
Ubuntu as an organization has lots of valuable experience when it comes to home users. Little when it comes to enterprise situations. Despite there being some very good things I can say about Ubnutu, my best answer would be to go with the "devil you know", so to speak. Red Hat has tons of experience with enterprise support, and have no doubt already entountered (and solved) a lot of the problems that Ubuntu has yet to see.
So for the short term, unless you want to be part of a grand experiment that someday will probably work out well, it is best to stick with The Hat as they are pretty good at what they do (maybe that's why they are a tad expensive). And keep in mind that Ubuntu is now where Red Hat was (in terms of enterprise) in 1997 (or so).
Ubuntu may be cheaper right now (I really don't know), and you do get what you pay for in some situations. But saved money is no comfort when it don't work and you are the guy charged with making it work.
First off, it is a nice application when it works right, and when you have the time to download such a huge beast.
I really wish they'd fix the bugs it has rather than introduce new features. I find it's "feature" or automagically changing fonts particularly maddening. Here I am typing away in Helvetica and halfway through the sentence it suddenly changes to Times New Roman. That really pisses me off.
It seems I have not been able to find a decent free word processor among the more popular ones available for Linux.
AbiWord is great, when it doesn't crash. OO is great when it doesn't magically change fonts, and provided you have the time to download it, etc. The best one I've found is the one you have to pay for (I forget its name, but it's made by a German firm - Maybe Softmaker?). And they are all too willing to sell you additional fonts. Fonts!
I for one will not be downloading this incremental release with feature bloat. Too much time for so little gain.
As many others have pointed out, the place is brimming with geeks. I volunteer there as part of the Skywarn program.
There's a significant number of Mets that also sling a little code on their off-hours. Naturally, they like to code new weather data manipulation and presentation applications.
They are also Open-Source friendly. The computer we use down there runs Fedora Core 3 and Firefox (at my insistence, and it was fine with them). Their AWIPS workstations run Red Hat Linux and feature 3 flat-panel montors. They are the coolest things, these AWIPS workstations. (If memory serves, the acronym means "Advanced Weather Information Presentation System").
But there are two truly remarkable things about the people that work there that I have noticed. First, they are about the smartest group of people that I have ever worked with.
Second, they truly have a dedication to protect and serve the public. That might sound corny to some, but not to me. They take pride in trying to warn the public of impending severe weather, and are genuinely concerned about the public's safety.
And while they cannot publicly comment on issues such as the misguided Senator Santorum's attempt to make them work for large corporations, I can almost guarantee that they aren't happy about it (based on a few private conversations I've had with some of the staff).
I have a deep respect for these people and do hope that Santorum's attempt to screw the public does not pass.
Why does everything have to be such a huge, "MS is evil!" thing?
Because they are!
Stealing other people's work (and only paying for it when and if they get caught), shady business practices (and outright monopolistic ones), forcing proprietary "standards" down our throats, and then there's the whole "DRM" thing.
Just the kind of company I won't patronize. I'd rather spend a month of Sundays figuring out how to configure some obscure feature on my Linux box (and learn something in the process) than spend 5 minutes pointing-and-clicking my way to a blue screen of death.
It's really that simple. They ARE evil.
I will stick with Google because it works. And even if, by some miracle, Microsoft manages to "best" Google in some way, I still will use Google.
There are some things in this world that need to be protested, and I put my money (or lack of it) where my mouth is.
I agree, terrestrial broadcasting is a local affair, and that's one reason I continue to watch it.
Someone else responding said that the intent of the FCC was to utilize the "core" VHF channels and lower UHF ones. This is not what I have heard, and not what I am observing in our area. All of the channels currently operating NTSC on VHF are moving to UHF. The FCC's plan has been to re-farm the VHF TV spectrum once the HDTV "deadline" passes.The exceptions will be areas like L.A. and New York City, where there are not enough UHF channels available (without interfering with other broadcasters) to assign to all broadcasters.
The coming problem with over-the-air TV Broadcasting is that we need local interests dictating the programming, a diverse expression of opinions, and people that demand these things in order to assure it's livelihood. It's clear to me that the FCC is not carrying out the job it was mandated to do - to make certain that the public airwaves, which are supposed to be public property, are used by broadcasters operating in the public interest.Clearly, the FCC is not doing this, as evidenced by their recent actions. I am not a government regulation junkie, but there are some things that need to be regulated. Broadcast is one of them.
So, "the People" are going to be forced to do this. Unfortunately, the very ones that stand to benefit from BCTV, the low and fixed income people (and those that simply won't pay for cable/sattelite) are the ones least able or likely to fight for it's survival.
. Not everyone wants or needs cable. There are public safety issues involved here - where's the best place to learn of a tornado warning or some other public safety threat? BCTV.
I fear that this may wind up being a moot point. Some new technology will come along that will require spectrum, will have politically influential corporate backing and hasten the demise of BCTV. And the ones who need BCTV won't have a prayer of fighting for it - the BCTV outlets will have been bought by large corporations and will have conveniently left that out of their "newscasts".
I'm all for keeping broadcast TV, HDTV or whatever form it may take, as long as we possibly can. We still need it, in the absence of something that would fulfill it's public service role.
Re-Farming the VHF band? Using it for some pie-in-the-sky coast-to-coast free digital network is not gonna work. Hams have tried this - it's very difficult to do, because of human nature, technical problems, and finances. It turned into a backward, text-only thing that has little appeal and is dying.
Keep Free TV as long as we can. It is still needed in the absence of "sub'space radio". (grin)
Let me preface this with something: I am not a computer scientist or engineer, just a dufus who fixes stuff, and sometimes that would be computers.
Windows of any variety is largely unreliable in my experience, in two ways. It's "robustness" varies from machine to machine, and the longer it runs, the less reliable it seems to be.
I don't doubt your experience with XP - it's perhaps the most reliable of the versions to date. But there is something that strikes me about your account of your two computers, and may be something to ponder.
You mention that the Linux machine runs a bunch of services and did so for 299 days once. You then mention the XP machine ran for 90 days without an OS crash. What was it running? Was it truly a comparable load?
And about those application crashes. Were these truly induced by the applications themselves, or by some faulty interaction with the OS that was the fault of the OS? I mention this because an aquaintance of mine programs in Foxpro and he is constantly being driven nuts by problems induced by the OS. The Microsoft OS.
Of course one could be tempted to say that the Linux applications could crash due to OS induced problems. I think this would be a rare situation as it's open source. If it were, it'd be fixed quickly.
Not trying to be flamic here, just expressing my experiences and observations. Most all of my experiences with anything Microsoft has been at the least a frustration, at the most the equal of a bloodletting. Not so with Linux. So I am biased - shoot me.
I work in the electronics repair industry, fixing both consumer electronics (TVs, VCRs, etc) and the electronic musical instrument repair biz (guitar amps, digital pianos, organs etc). I have an informed point of view on this. Yes, the products I repair (when feasible) have declined greatly in quality.
Excessive and ridiculous greed has caused these people to make all kinds of cheezy crap. Salespeople demand useless "features" that people don't want and don't know how to use, while manufacturers push down quality to meet a "price point".
I've seen new Fender guitar amplifiers need to be resoldered, Roland synthesizers with ridiculously cheezy power switches that fail within the warranty period, and two year-old Zenith TV sets that have weak CRTs already. Contrast that with my personal experience - two years ago I replaced my RCA tv set that was 20 years old.
Now here's a neat paradox - the newer stuff is infinitely easier to work on. Too bad you have to throw it away because it will usually cost more to fix it than replace it.
Great global economy we have - cheap shit made by slave laborers in the far east. What a world we live in!
...but if you really like your TV, you need a Carnivale!
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It can save your ass when X takes a dump (not too often, but it does happen). And it can run in a terminal when X is working.
I spent considerable time looking for a "pretty" replacement for mc, and eventually gave up. Nothing managed to do everything that mc does as quickly, as easily and conveniently. There are some nice file managers out there, but every one I tried wound up lacking something that I really like about mc.
Opera is my browser of choice, because what memory and disk space it does use pays off in performance. For documents that don't need the OO capabilities, AbiWord is great.
I also regularly use Xfig and pcb (although pcb understandably requires at least a little horsepower to run). XV is surprisingly capable for a viewer, even though it looks a tad ugly by today's standards.
Before AfterStep got all clunky and slow (at least around the time they made the transition to 2.0), I used it. Now I use Fluxbox. I still use fetchmail and pine. When alpine comes a little further along, I'll probably give it a try.
The one solid disappointment for me has been Tux racer. I have never really been able to successfully play that game with any kind of responsiveness on anything but a powerful machine. I remember it being included in the Red Hat 5.2 distribution and there was no way it would play on my 120 MHz 486 with 32 MB of RAM. Ah, the good old days...
I agree that the ads are not good and can alienate people. It appears to me that the ads merely preach to the converted. They don't get the benefits of the Mac across and why a person should buy them. To some people they may be cute, but I got rather tired of them fairly quickly. Here are the major selling points that they should be pushing, practical things that can sell a good product:
1) The price might seem to be a little more than a PC, but you generally get a higher-quality piece of equipment. Add the cost of an Internet Security Suite (most people will foolishly lay out money for Norton or something like that) and the added cost of various other utilities you will buy, and you have pricing comparable to a Mac.
2) They require less maintanence than a PC. And your time is worth money.
3) They are as user-friendly as a computer can get these days. It is a simple matter to change stuff and add programs. Not always so with Windows.
4) They are reliable. This again is a Time-Is-Money issue.
You don't need to say anything abut the operating system in those ads. Your average guy on the street who uses a computer wants a tool or a toy. They are buying a computer, not an operating system. When people want to buy a computer and ask for my advice, they never ask me what kind of operating system they should buy. They ask me what brand of computer to buy.
The previously mentioned selling points are the very reasons I told my late-30's contractor friend and his wife to buy a Mac when they asked me "What kind of computer should I buy?". They were especially glad they did when they saw what happened to his buddy's PC computer running Windows XP. And what his buddy will have to do to keep it operating. For him, it is the simplest and best way to run a computer. For me, it is fewer Sundays running Anti-Spyware programs in a month and trying to troubleshoot other problems over the phone.
I use Slackware myself and am perfectly comfortable here. I doubt my friend will be that comfortable with Linux ever, and that's OK by me. But the end result is that this is one less Windows machine out there, and it has everything to do with the total Apple experience. And they did a much better job of putting a concept into product than Microsoft ever did.
It is just silly that a company can be as large as Microsoft, have talented people working for them, and still has to send the big guy out to lie to everyone when they launch a major new product. And if he ever wants to talk about "borrowing" ideas, he need to look no further than his mirror.
People have noted that it takes longer than the usual amount of time for Ubuntu to issue patches, that perhaps has to do with compatibility testing and dealing with their package management system.
I have installed Ubuntu for a few people and generally like what I see in terms of usability for your average computer user who really is not all that computer literate. However, there are a few issues that will occasionally come up and could stymie an unassisted home installer. In an enterprise setting with a full-time IT department that has thoroughly "vetted" the install, I suspect that this would be less of a problem than it would be for Joe home user. Updates and maintenence for an enterprise are generally a lot more tricky than for the home user, due to specific applications that are used in an enterprise setting, conflicts, etc.
Ubuntu as an organization has lots of valuable experience when it comes to home users. Little when it comes to enterprise situations. Despite there being some very good things I can say about Ubnutu, my best answer would be to go with the "devil you know", so to speak. Red Hat has tons of experience with enterprise support, and have no doubt already entountered (and solved) a lot of the problems that Ubuntu has yet to see.
So for the short term, unless you want to be part of a grand experiment that someday will probably work out well, it is best to stick with The Hat as they are pretty good at what they do (maybe that's why they are a tad expensive). And keep in mind that Ubuntu is now where Red Hat was (in terms of enterprise) in 1997 (or so).
Ubuntu may be cheaper right now (I really don't know), and you do get what you pay for in some situations. But saved money is no comfort when it don't work and you are the guy charged with making it work.
I really wish they'd fix the bugs it has rather than introduce new features. I find it's "feature" or automagically changing fonts particularly maddening. Here I am typing away in Helvetica and halfway through the sentence it suddenly changes to Times New Roman. That really pisses me off.
It seems I have not been able to find a decent free word processor among the more popular ones available for Linux.
AbiWord is great, when it doesn't crash. OO is great when it doesn't magically change fonts, and provided you have the time to download it, etc. The best one I've found is the one you have to pay for (I forget its name, but it's made by a German firm - Maybe Softmaker?). And they are all too willing to sell you additional fonts. Fonts!
I for one will not be downloading this incremental release with feature bloat. Too much time for so little gain.
There's a significant number of Mets that also sling a little code on their off-hours. Naturally, they like to code new weather data manipulation and presentation applications.
They are also Open-Source friendly. The computer we use down there runs Fedora Core 3 and Firefox (at my insistence, and it was fine with them). Their AWIPS workstations run Red Hat Linux and feature 3 flat-panel montors. They are the coolest things, these AWIPS workstations. (If memory serves, the acronym means "Advanced Weather Information Presentation System").
But there are two truly remarkable things about the people that work there that I have noticed. First, they are about the smartest group of people that I have ever worked with.
Second, they truly have a dedication to protect and serve the public. That might sound corny to some, but not to me. They take pride in trying to warn the public of impending severe weather, and are genuinely concerned about the public's safety.
And while they cannot publicly comment on issues such as the misguided Senator Santorum's attempt to make them work for large corporations, I can almost guarantee that they aren't happy about it (based on a few private conversations I've had with some of the staff).
I have a deep respect for these people and do hope that Santorum's attempt to screw the public does not pass.
Because they are!
Stealing other people's work (and only paying for it when and if they get caught), shady business practices (and outright monopolistic ones), forcing proprietary "standards" down our throats, and then there's the whole "DRM" thing.
Just the kind of company I won't patronize. I'd rather spend a month of Sundays figuring out how to configure some obscure feature on my Linux box (and learn something in the process) than spend 5 minutes pointing-and-clicking my way to a blue screen of death.
It's really that simple. They ARE evil.
I will stick with Google because it works. And even if, by some miracle, Microsoft manages to "best" Google in some way, I still will use Google.
There are some things in this world that need to be protested, and I put my money (or lack of it) where my mouth is.
Someone else responding said that the intent of the FCC was to utilize the "core" VHF channels and lower UHF ones. This is not what I have heard, and not what I am observing in our area. All of the channels currently operating NTSC on VHF are moving to UHF. The FCC's plan has been to re-farm the VHF TV spectrum once the HDTV "deadline" passes.The exceptions will be areas like L.A. and New York City, where there are not enough UHF channels available (without interfering with other broadcasters) to assign to all broadcasters.
The coming problem with over-the-air TV Broadcasting is that we need local interests dictating the programming, a diverse expression of opinions, and people that demand these things in order to assure it's livelihood. It's clear to me that the FCC is not carrying out the job it was mandated to do - to make certain that the public airwaves, which are supposed to be public property, are used by broadcasters operating in the public interest.Clearly, the FCC is not doing this, as evidenced by their recent actions. I am not a government regulation junkie, but there are some things that need to be regulated. Broadcast is one of them.
So, "the People" are going to be forced to do this. Unfortunately, the very ones that stand to benefit from BCTV, the low and fixed income people (and those that simply won't pay for cable/sattelite) are the ones least able or likely to fight for it's survival.
.
Not everyone wants or needs cable. There are public safety issues involved here - where's the best place to learn of a tornado warning or some other public safety threat? BCTV.
I fear that this may wind up being a moot point. Some new technology will come along that will require spectrum, will have politically influential corporate backing and hasten the demise of BCTV. And the ones who need BCTV won't have a prayer of fighting for it - the BCTV outlets will have been bought by large corporations and will have conveniently left that out of their "newscasts".
I'm all for keeping broadcast TV, HDTV or whatever form it may take, as long as we possibly can. We still need it, in the absence of something that would fulfill it's public service role.
Re-Farming the VHF band? Using it for some pie-in-the-sky coast-to-coast free digital network is not gonna work. Hams have tried this - it's very difficult to do, because of human nature, technical problems, and finances. It turned into a backward, text-only thing that has little appeal and is dying.
Keep Free TV as long as we can. It is still needed in the absence of "sub'space radio". (grin)
Windows of any variety is largely unreliable in my experience, in two ways. It's "robustness" varies from machine to machine, and the longer it runs, the less reliable it seems to be.
I don't doubt your experience with XP - it's perhaps the most reliable of the versions to date. But there is something that strikes me about your account of your two computers, and may be something to ponder.
You mention that the Linux machine runs a bunch of services and did so for 299 days once. You then mention the XP machine ran for 90 days without an OS crash. What was it running? Was it truly a comparable load?
And about those application crashes. Were these truly induced by the applications themselves, or by some faulty interaction with the OS that was the fault of the OS? I mention this because an aquaintance of mine programs in Foxpro and he is constantly being driven nuts by problems induced by the OS. The Microsoft OS.
Of course one could be tempted to say that the Linux applications could crash due to OS induced problems. I think this would be a rare situation as it's open source. If it were, it'd be fixed quickly.
Not trying to be flamic here, just expressing my experiences and observations. Most all of my experiences with anything Microsoft has been at the least a frustration, at the most the equal of a bloodletting. Not so with Linux. So I am biased - shoot me.
I work in the electronics repair industry, fixing both consumer electronics (TVs, VCRs, etc) and the electronic musical instrument repair biz (guitar amps, digital pianos, organs etc). I have an informed point of view on this. Yes, the products I repair (when feasible) have declined greatly in quality.
Excessive and ridiculous greed has caused these people to make all kinds of cheezy crap. Salespeople demand useless "features" that people don't want and don't know how to use, while manufacturers push down quality to meet a "price point".
I've seen new Fender guitar amplifiers need to be resoldered, Roland synthesizers with ridiculously cheezy power switches that fail within the warranty period, and two year-old Zenith TV sets that have weak CRTs already. Contrast that with my personal experience - two years ago I replaced my RCA tv set that was 20 years old.
Yet, I routinely repair 50 year-old (yes, that's 50) Hammond Organs.
Now here's a neat paradox - the newer stuff is infinitely easier to work on. Too bad you have to throw it away because it will usually cost more to fix it than replace it.
Great global economy we have - cheap shit made by slave laborers in the far east. What a world we live in!