I hate installing software that didn't come with the distro currently. Windows does this well, Mac does this well, why is this so hard for Linux?
Because its not as easy as you make it out to be. In fact, crossing the distro divides is so hard almost all the majors have given up on it (except for Mandriva).
This sort of thing is what gets me about KDE. Now as I mentioned with SUSE, the choice is practically made for me since the level of effort they've made with GNOME can be best described as token. Perhaps I will grow to love KDE, but somehow I doubt it. More likely I'll learn to live with it, "training" myself to workaround the noise and crud it flings at me as I try to work.
Or use Ubuntu. Its what us Gnome fans are all doing nowadays. Welcome to the party.
Of course in an ideal world (a world Linux will have to get to), there should be no distinction between KDE or GNOME.
So in an ideal world one of the two would not exist? I hope to never see that world, if "there could be only one" it would be the one you and I don't like -KDE. Its more popular.
Plus, lets be honest. Desktop Linux is for nerds. As far as regular users go, Linux invades their life in their cell phones, TiVo, and routers that protect their Windows based PC. Its a nerds OS, and will be till the desktop dies and is replaced with computer appliances. Nerds enjoy all the choice (some days I love XFCE) and so such choices will stick around. Its fun to pretend that Linux will be on every desktop, but even nerds have to wake up eventually. Sure Linux can do fine on a non nerds desktop if a nerd sets it up and basically turns their box into an internet appliance- then KDE or Gnome doesn't matter then either.
Can I use it as a regular OS and install apps, use email clients etc?
Yes, but it will be slower running off the CD than the hard disk.
Where does the data go - to a partition on my disk, or does it let you use a large Windows file or something?
Your RAM, and maybe to a pen drive or a blank CD if you can swing it. It does not touch your harddisk unless you tell it to, and if its a NFTS disk it won't be able to write to it no matter what.
Sorry I can't give a better answer, but I saw you had none. Linux nerds always install the OS, the Live CDs are for saving Windows machines and test driving an OS for 30 minutes or so and thats why no one else replied. I know no one doing a day to day tasks in one.
The scary thing is that for many people Dell=Microsoft. I mean, it says Microsoft when you boot your Dell, they must be the same thing right? Just like computer=monitor.
The fact is however, that for desktop acceptance, the "dumb user" scenario is more important than the sysadmin one, and that is something the people implementing linux by and large don't get (or don't like or care about if they get it).
Its the third option: can't do anything about it if they wanted to. How do you cross the chaos and make packages that will install in all distros when distros won't work towards a common goal?
Does the introduction of blogsearch.google.com mean that content on whatever Google deems a blog is being segregated from the rest of the Internet? Try cutting and pasting a phrase from your favorite A-list blog into Google's regular search: nada. Try putting it in blogsearch: voila!
If this helps your theory or not: thanks for the link. I never knew of that google engine and that is awesome. There goes all the time not spent reading/.
It has to be EASY. Apple set the benchmark for this -- and if imitation is the greatest form of flattery, then do it. Who cares about inflating Apple's ego? If Linux makes a breakthru on the desktop because it's as easy to use as an Apple, or even as easy as Windows, how does that hurt anybody? The true geek can rely on the the commandline only distros, or drop to terminal to get their tasks done using regular expressions and grep or whatever they want, while the 'idiots' (and I would venture to say, that I'm one of them) can use the nice GUI that's simple to follow and easy to use.
Then folks, when developers see that they can cross develop applications that work in Linux (with little overhead), and that people will be able to easily use and access them -- THEY WILL.
You are missing a pretty big point. Linux does not have cross distro binaries because the developers don't want to be like Ms's Windows or Apple's OSX or because that would be too easy. Linux does not have cross distro binaries because its not an OS. Its a kernel for many OSes like SUSE or Ubuntu. The reason the community doesn't release things in magical binaries that install on all these Linux based OSes is because that is a VERY hard problem to overcome. Despite using the same kernel, and maybe the same xserver, the distros are so different that there are almost no common threads. Its chaos.
Not some "pull together for the good of Linux and fix the problems guys" kind of chaos either. Its "after three years of hard work in the future we might a solution that works 60% of the time at most" kind of chaos. Like almost no way to hold it together. Why? Because anyone can do what they will with Linux- they have to incentive to work together. In fact many Linux companies compete with each other and want to lock each other out with incompatibilities (even though they can't really).
The only way it will get easier is if one distro gets so much more popular than the rest and all the others that want desktop market share have to copy that one. Then that one will get the same priority Windows gets now- fresh double click install file the same day as Windows releases. But one won't "win" until a mass of users migrate....so....see you at the 2010 "Year of the Linux Desktop" party? At that point I'll be a Linux user for 6 years because I can live with the fact that until I can install a piece of software in my distro's package manager, it is not released for my distro yet and I can't have it. Why do I really need the new Firefox the day it comes out?
Windows development makes it easy to create correctly formed install packages. Linux development does not.
Thats because Windows is a complete (set) of OSes, while Linux is just a kernel. Apples and Oranges. The true comparison would be to compare a single distro to Windows- say Ubuntu or SUSE. In both cases, if the software is not in an repository or a distro specific package then that software has not been released for your OS yet- just as if the software was never packaged for your version of Windows. Yet unlike and Windows you can get the "unreleased" source code if you want and install it before its released for your OS.
The biggest problem former Windows users have is that they can get new software packaged for Windows the day milestones are acheived because Windows is so popular- they cannot do this with any Linux based distro because none are popular enough to warrant the same treatment.
Linux is a not a single OS. Its the basis of many other OSes, and there is no glue to hold them to together. The fact that you can't install "Linux" programs on all Linux based distros is not because developers are ignoring your demands, its because even the best developers in Linuxland can't find a way to make such binaries. Autopackage does not integrate well enough. All other attempts have failed. The brightest OSS minds have tried and have given up- there is not good way to cross the chaos that is the Linux distro market. The individual package manager is king.
If the fact that no single distro is popular enough to warrent packaging with the same priority that Windows software is packaged is the reason why you do not wish to use a Linux, then you and many others might never be happy with Linux based OSes. Thats fine, it works just well for me and many others. As far as I'm concerned the new Firefox and whatever else program is not released for my OS until I can install it in Ubuntu's package manager. It might be behind when Windows gets new things (aka not the day slashdot says its released) but when I do get the updates it works well. Each to his or her own.
It'll be impossible for Linux to be a solid desktop operating system for the masses without serious corporate investment is what you meant to say. It works fine as a desktop for me.
I want what Vista will have- GPU acceration. KDE 3.4's Kwin has a compmgr now that speeds things up and allows for neat GUI tricks (with an Nvidia card) but its as buggy as can be. I want a straight copy of everything Vista has- thumbnails of taskbared programs, fading Windows, drop shadows, etc. Thats is where you get users. On the "wow" factor.
2005 is about to end and the best GPU work done on Linux (xcompmgr) is over a year old with no development. People with old computer have options like XFCE, but those that want a stable/accerated high end Linux desktop have none! Xorg is ready. Nvidia has the drivers. And no one wants to pick up the ball....
(Sorry if I sound like Mr. Smirl, but often I think he is correct!).
O.K., its a license thing with gstreamer too, thats why the USER has to install the ffmpeg plugin, but wouldn't a messagebox with a "you have to agree to take responsibility blabla...." and an OK button to start the install be adequate?
And how presisely did any Republican gain 'extra power'?
For your evidence, just look at Bush's approval ratings after 9/11. He went from "guy that kinda won the election" to "father America" in one day. I'm not bitter. I kind of like Bush (I believe he is a good man) and I agree with many that Gore would have been worse in the role. I don't like what his cronies did with his gained power.
And if they have, what do you think they are doing with it?
After 9/11, the Pentagon used the event as an excuse to end the Gulf War the way Bush 1 would not let them. They knew that if they attacked Iraq so soon after Afghanistan that most people would think that such an attack meant that Iraq was also behind 9/11 and support the move. They were right. It took two years and an election to get through most people's heads that 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq. The American public is that ignorant. Smart people in the Pentagon, and I might support their brand of evil if they didn't do it by creating a large deficit.
Got any proof, or is this more fear mongering by your side - the side that appears to demand that old ladies be frisked in the airport alongside more reasonable suspects?
The proof is all the dead Americans in the Iraq war.
Your blind-eyed approach to justice is without common sense given the circumstances.
And your enthusiasm to follow the constitution only when it fits you will bite you in the ass in twenty years when Democrats (firmly in control of the government) send Repbulican supporters to Cuba using your party's precedent. The worst thing about the current Republican government as it is is the assumption that they will always be on top.
Sure, because a bunch of knee-jerk congressmen changed them...
I mean it's not like the 9/11 bastards showed up in uniforms toting weapons, right?
And its not like the Oklahoma City Bombing was any different in regards to rules followed by "the enemy." Yet Timothy McVeigh had a fair trial. You will say "but 9/11 is different." Sure is, during 9/11 YOUR party was in power and you want to milk that for all its worth. An old fashioned power grab. Its not the worst thing ever, but stop pretending like its a noble thing.
Maybe we should just go with the other alternative and carpet bomb any SPECK of resistance. You know, the way war USED to be like - winners and losers.
How does it feel to be a dinosaur in the modern age?
Just who America needs to run their country - mad dog libs ready to take a bite out of everything just to have their little way.
As a moderate, I prefer that to a party that gets its entire social positions from a single book ( Bible).
I voted for Bush in the past but I can't align myself with the Republicans anymore in the future. It has given up its core beliefs (less government, FISCAL FREAKING RESPONSIBILITY), and now panders to ignorant Bible-belt voters. Why create a decent domestic policy when people will vote for you just because your party takes a certain side in an issue that your party can't change because it was determined over a decade ago (abortion)? Why work for things like a balanced budget when people will vote for you just because of your stance on gay marriage (even though your party will knock down an anti-gay marriage amendment when it comes through the congress your party controls)? Why come up with a decent foreign policy when a lot of your base actually believes terrorists hate up for our "freedom," or worse, religion (yep, the huge economic disparity in the world has nothing to do with it). The Republicans were once the party of sense. Now thats not the case. Who cares about how you win as long as you do, right?
Even though at one point in my life the thought would have made me sick, I might vote for a Democrat next time around. I would rather be associated with the ignorance of Dean over the ignorance of Delay any day.
Still, sharing and SMB functionality are standard functions which most people I know use on a daily basis.
Yep. Students (thats who this is aimed at) share their printer everyday, so all the people in the dorm can use up all their ink and paper.
This is not aimed at a market for those that want advanced networking. This is aimed at those that want to pirate music off the internet without being infected by the spyware of the P2P program.
Slashdot Mirror
Man that post is funny.
Until OpenOffice's Writer can check grammer and do many other things Word can do (title case or autocomplete anyone?) its not comparible.
Lucky for me, Abiword is quickly catching up to Word (grammer checking in newest version) and will pass it this year I bet.
Because its not as easy as you make it out to be. In fact, crossing the distro divides is so hard almost all the majors have given up on it (except for Mandriva).
Over a year. Never recompiled a kernel. Its a myth. I did throw out an ATI card for an Nvidia one though.
Tell that to my 15 year old sister than loves her TiVo (linux) and her cell phone (linux).
Or use Ubuntu. Its what us Gnome fans are all doing nowadays. Welcome to the party.
Of course in an ideal world (a world Linux will have to get to), there should be no distinction between KDE or GNOME.
So in an ideal world one of the two would not exist? I hope to never see that world, if "there could be only one" it would be the one you and I don't like -KDE. Its more popular.
Plus, lets be honest. Desktop Linux is for nerds. As far as regular users go, Linux invades their life in their cell phones, TiVo, and routers that protect their Windows based PC. Its a nerds OS, and will be till the desktop dies and is replaced with computer appliances. Nerds enjoy all the choice (some days I love XFCE) and so such choices will stick around. Its fun to pretend that Linux will be on every desktop, but even nerds have to wake up eventually. Sure Linux can do fine on a non nerds desktop if a nerd sets it up and basically turns their box into an internet appliance- then KDE or Gnome doesn't matter then either.
Yes, but it will be slower running off the CD than the hard disk.
Where does the data go - to a partition on my disk, or does it let you use a large Windows file or something?
Your RAM, and maybe to a pen drive or a blank CD if you can swing it. It does not touch your harddisk unless you tell it to, and if its a NFTS disk it won't be able to write to it no matter what.
Sorry I can't give a better answer, but I saw you had none. Linux nerds always install the OS, the Live CDs are for saving Windows machines and test driving an OS for 30 minutes or so and thats why no one else replied. I know no one doing a day to day tasks in one.
Its the third option: can't do anything about it if they wanted to. How do you cross the chaos and make packages that will install in all distros when distros won't work towards a common goal?
You don't.
If this helps your theory or not: thanks for the link. I never knew of that google engine and that is awesome. There goes all the time not spent reading /.
"If you discount the trees, the rocks, and the animals this forest is a pretty good field."
It does not work that way.
He sure is giving it a good shot though!
Then folks, when developers see that they can cross develop applications that work in Linux (with little overhead), and that people will be able to easily use and access them -- THEY WILL.
You are missing a pretty big point. Linux does not have cross distro binaries because the developers don't want to be like Ms's Windows or Apple's OSX or because that would be too easy. Linux does not have cross distro binaries because its not an OS. Its a kernel for many OSes like SUSE or Ubuntu. The reason the community doesn't release things in magical binaries that install on all these Linux based OSes is because that is a VERY hard problem to overcome. Despite using the same kernel, and maybe the same xserver, the distros are so different that there are almost no common threads. Its chaos.
Not some "pull together for the good of Linux and fix the problems guys" kind of chaos either. Its "after three years of hard work in the future we might a solution that works 60% of the time at most" kind of chaos. Like almost no way to hold it together. Why? Because anyone can do what they will with Linux- they have to incentive to work together. In fact many Linux companies compete with each other and want to lock each other out with incompatibilities (even though they can't really).
The only way it will get easier is if one distro gets so much more popular than the rest and all the others that want desktop market share have to copy that one. Then that one will get the same priority Windows gets now- fresh double click install file the same day as Windows releases. But one won't "win" until a mass of users migrate....so....see you at the 2010 "Year of the Linux Desktop" party? At that point I'll be a Linux user for 6 years because I can live with the fact that until I can install a piece of software in my distro's package manager, it is not released for my distro yet and I can't have it. Why do I really need the new Firefox the day it comes out?
Thats because Windows is a complete (set) of OSes, while Linux is just a kernel. Apples and Oranges. The true comparison would be to compare a single distro to Windows- say Ubuntu or SUSE. In both cases, if the software is not in an repository or a distro specific package then that software has not been released for your OS yet- just as if the software was never packaged for your version of Windows. Yet unlike and Windows you can get the "unreleased" source code if you want and install it before its released for your OS.
The biggest problem former Windows users have is that they can get new software packaged for Windows the day milestones are acheived because Windows is so popular- they cannot do this with any Linux based distro because none are popular enough to warrant the same treatment.
Linux is a not a single OS. Its the basis of many other OSes, and there is no glue to hold them to together. The fact that you can't install "Linux" programs on all Linux based distros is not because developers are ignoring your demands, its because even the best developers in Linuxland can't find a way to make such binaries. Autopackage does not integrate well enough. All other attempts have failed. The brightest OSS minds have tried and have given up- there is not good way to cross the chaos that is the Linux distro market. The individual package manager is king.
If the fact that no single distro is popular enough to warrent packaging with the same priority that Windows software is packaged is the reason why you do not wish to use a Linux, then you and many others might never be happy with Linux based OSes. Thats fine, it works just well for me and many others. As far as I'm concerned the new Firefox and whatever else program is not released for my OS until I can install it in Ubuntu's package manager. It might be behind when Windows gets new things (aka not the day slashdot says its released) but when I do get the updates it works well. Each to his or her own.
But that by far is the hardest part. Thats why its still a problem- nothing about making cross distro binaries is easy.
It'll be impossible for Linux to be a solid desktop operating system for the masses without serious corporate investment is what you meant to say. It works fine as a desktop for me.
There is the link that will tell you how to do it in all modern Linuxs. If its too much I'll just send you my config file- I'm addicted to dual monitors as well.
I love my Firefox, but you sound like a prime candidate for Opera.
2005 is about to end and the best GPU work done on Linux (xcompmgr) is over a year old with no development. People with old computer have options like XFCE, but those that want a stable/accerated high end Linux desktop have none! Xorg is ready. Nvidia has the drivers. And no one wants to pick up the ball....
(Sorry if I sound like Mr. Smirl, but often I think he is correct!).
No. In many nations that would make the developers an accessory to a crime:
An accessory to a crime is any individual who knowingly and voluntarily participates in the commission of a crime.
If all it takes is a disclaimer to make legal troubles go away, many of my favorite NES rom sites would still exist!
For your evidence, just look at Bush's approval ratings after 9/11. He went from "guy that kinda won the election" to "father America" in one day. I'm not bitter. I kind of like Bush (I believe he is a good man) and I agree with many that Gore would have been worse in the role. I don't like what his cronies did with his gained power.
And if they have, what do you think they are doing with it?
After 9/11, the Pentagon used the event as an excuse to end the Gulf War the way Bush 1 would not let them. They knew that if they attacked Iraq so soon after Afghanistan that most people would think that such an attack meant that Iraq was also behind 9/11 and support the move. They were right. It took two years and an election to get through most people's heads that 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq. The American public is that ignorant. Smart people in the Pentagon, and I might support their brand of evil if they didn't do it by creating a large deficit.
Got any proof, or is this more fear mongering by your side - the side that appears to demand that old ladies be frisked in the airport alongside more reasonable suspects?
The proof is all the dead Americans in the Iraq war.
Your blind-eyed approach to justice is without common sense given the circumstances.
And your enthusiasm to follow the constitution only when it fits you will bite you in the ass in twenty years when Democrats (firmly in control of the government) send Repbulican supporters to Cuba using your party's precedent. The worst thing about the current Republican government as it is is the assumption that they will always be on top.
Sure, because a bunch of knee-jerk congressmen changed them...
I mean it's not like the 9/11 bastards showed up in uniforms toting weapons, right?
And its not like the Oklahoma City Bombing was any different in regards to rules followed by "the enemy." Yet Timothy McVeigh had a fair trial. You will say "but 9/11 is different." Sure is, during 9/11 YOUR party was in power and you want to milk that for all its worth. An old fashioned power grab. Its not the worst thing ever, but stop pretending like its a noble thing.
Maybe we should just go with the other alternative and carpet bomb any SPECK of resistance. You know, the way war USED to be like - winners and losers.
How does it feel to be a dinosaur in the modern age?
As a moderate, I prefer that to a party that gets its entire social positions from a single book ( Bible).
I voted for Bush in the past but I can't align myself with the Republicans anymore in the future. It has given up its core beliefs (less government, FISCAL FREAKING RESPONSIBILITY), and now panders to ignorant Bible-belt voters. Why create a decent domestic policy when people will vote for you just because your party takes a certain side in an issue that your party can't change because it was determined over a decade ago (abortion)? Why work for things like a balanced budget when people will vote for you just because of your stance on gay marriage (even though your party will knock down an anti-gay marriage amendment when it comes through the congress your party controls)? Why come up with a decent foreign policy when a lot of your base actually believes terrorists hate up for our "freedom," or worse, religion (yep, the huge economic disparity in the world has nothing to do with it). The Republicans were once the party of sense. Now thats not the case. Who cares about how you win as long as you do, right?
Even though at one point in my life the thought would have made me sick, I might vote for a Democrat next time around. I would rather be associated with the ignorance of Dean over the ignorance of Delay any day.
Because then you will know what PC company has some balls (since doing that would be the way to loose OEM Windows pricing)?
Yep. Students (thats who this is aimed at) share their printer everyday, so all the people in the dorm can use up all their ink and paper.
This is not aimed at a market for those that want advanced networking. This is aimed at those that want to pirate music off the internet without being infected by the spyware of the P2P program.