MS *NEVER* has to release the code for MS-Office. If it were ported to X, that doesn't make it subject to GPL. Plus, it would not be difficult for them to hide code in MS-Office that determines which Linux Distro it is and only run on the one(s) of their choice. And if they ever did do such a port (which I doubt), it would very much be typical MS style for them to pick and choose which distro(s) they support and lock everyone else out.
>I'm sure Bill would happily pay Linus a million or
>two if he could legally prevent Linus from writing
>any more code.
Your point is valid, but Linus doesn't code anymore and hasn't for many years. People give that one person ENTIRELY too much credit. Linux is far, far, far, far, far beyond a single person.
So we shouldn't press civil charges on THEFT? You want to leave it up to each business or individual to sue every shoplifter, car theif, or white collar crime?
Does it really matter? Both are illegal and WRONG. Selling it is worse, but I have no sympathy for people being fined or arrested for "sharing", which is still stealing. As long as the methods for catching them are not violating privacy.
Tell that to my computer-challenged mother, who uses Linux. A friend at work who uses Linux and has no idea how to admin it. My best freind's 68-year-old father, who uses Linux.
Linux doesn't *HAVE* to be any harder to install or use than any other OS.
That is just plain silly. Indeed just about every Linux distribution is nearly the same, once it is installed. So yes, they are "basically the same". And yes, "Linux" is commonly used to denote an "operating system" and that is fine. Beats the hell out of saying "A GNU/Linux/X/KDE/Gnome/etc Open Source Based Operating System combined by Linspire".
You don't have to "port" Linux applications from one distribution to another. The only thing you really need to know when jumping from one distro to another is what shared libs are available. And you need to consider that even within the SAME distro at different release points.
And MacOS-10 is significantly different from most BSD Distributions. Most notably being the non-X GUI.
> Guess it depends on definitions. Fedora isn't a
>retail desktop Linux distribution, is it?
Not really. But Mandriva is. And it can be had retail or free. SuSe personal can be had retail or free also.
Video player:
mplayer can play just about anything out there, as long as you obtain the correct codes. Check out plf.zarb.org and the "win32-codecs" rpm. With it, mplayer will magically know how to play all the things can can't do by default (because of copyrights on the DLL's or stupid software patents).
That is exactly what Mandriva does. They were one of the first distros (or THE first) to support *ALL* the desktop enviornments seamlessly (Kde, gnome, ice, blackbox, fce, etc) and all the configuration tools work the same in all of them. Icing on the cake is Mandriva's menu manager which automatically creates a standard "start" menu for every desktop environment and keeps them all synchronized when you add or remove software.
Because the general look and feel of the Linux GUI is going to depend on the desktop environment chosen. The two major ones are KDE and Gnome. If you keep trying different distro and notice similarity in KDE, for example, then that is because the distro has decided not to completely hack up the defaults. I will tell you that Knoppix doesn't look at all like Fedora, which doesn't look at all like Mandriva. Choice is usually a "good thing", and you can also customize your environment to no end.
Ubuntu is a nice distro. But it is not as easy (or pretty) to install, configure, and use. But that doesn't mean it is inferior, just different. It has other strengths.
Your key issue will depend entirely on the desktop environment you chose. If you use KDE, the MS-Win key (ug) will immediately bring up the "start" menu, regardless of which virtual desktop you are using. KDE is very configurable, so you can change the behavior of such keys as you see fit. As for Win-F, it pulls up the search for me. As for Nautalis... that is just but one choice for Email clients. Why not try Kmail?
Mandriva offers torrents for all the current flavors of the distro, but not for the beta/Cooker versions (not typically).
My experience with torrents are mixed. Sometimes it is wonderful, other times it is a nightmare... Still, I do agree that there should be a torrent for it.
BZZZT! Wrong! Mandrake/Mandriva have ALWAYS had both a free and commercial version. The free version is *EASILY* obtained from COUNTLESS mirror sites.
The only difference between the two is that the commercial version includes support and copyrighted (non-GPL) packages.
Yikes, my last comment looked like crappola! Let me try a little formatting...
> Will my graphics card work?
Worked fine for me on the dozens of different machines I have installed 10.2 on
> Will I have sound?
Worked fine for me on the dozens of different machines I have installed 10.2 on
>Will it take 2 weeks and constant forum trolling
> to find solutions to my problems?
It depends on who and how you ask, and what it is about...
>Will I have a consitant interface that doesn't
>change from one area of the OS to another?
Yes and no. If you want to limit your choices, then yes. If you want to explore applications that use different libraries/toolkits, no. Linux has no single "GUI" or user interface. It is both a blessing and a curse.
>Will I have all of the creature-features I'm used >to in Windows?
Like what? I can do everything I want with Linux and have done so for a decade. Are there some types of applications missing? Yes, but not many. I would prefer more choices, but one step at a time.
>I'm still partially on the Linux bandwagon, but
>my last series of experiences left me a little >less excited.
Your experience is going to vary GREATLY depending on the hardware you choose, which distro is selected, and how it is installed/configured. Your best bet is to hook up with a local user's group.
> Will my graphics card work?
Worked fine for me on the dozens of different machines I have installed 10.2 on
> Will I have sound?
Worked fine for me on the dozens of different machines I have installed 10.2 on
>Will it take 2 weeks and constant forum trolling
> to find solutions to my problems?
It depends on who and how you ask, and what it is about...
>Will I have a consitant interface that doesn't
>change from one area of the OS to another?
Yes and no. If you want to limit your choices, then yes. If you want to explore applications that use different libraries/toolkits, no. Linux has no single "GUI" or user interface. It is both a blessing and a curse.
>Will I have all of the creature-features I'm used >to in Windows?
Like what? I can do everything I want with Linux and have done so for a decade. Are there some types of applications missing? Yes, but not many. I would prefer more choices, but one step at a time.
>I'm still partially on the Linux bandwagon, but
>my last series of experiences left me a little >less excited.
Your experience is going to vary GREATLY depending on the hardware you choose, which distro is selected, and how it is installed/configured. Your best bet is to hook up with a local user's group.
There might be too many distros, but don't make it sound like Mandrake/Mandriva is something new. It is a major distro and has been for many years.
And there is quite a bit of difference between Mandriva Linux and, let's say, Fedora Core, or SuSe. They use different installation methods, have different hardware detection capabilities, and different administration tools.
Booting from a USB device is determined by the computer BIOS, not the OS.
If your BIOS supports booting off a USB device, then Linux can be booted that way, including Mandriva.
Your comments are completely WRONG.
Mandrake was *THE FIRST* disto to offer journaling filesystems. For many years, they has offered reiserfs, then they added ext3 when it came out, then added xfs and jfs when THEY came out.
The default filesystem has been ext3 for at least three years now.
You may now crawl back under the rock that trolls live under.
If you purchased hardware that works with Linux then it would make things a lot easier.
In any case, Mandrake/Mandriva includes ndiswrapper, which will allow almost all wifi cards to work under Linux that are not natively supported.
This is nothing new.
It is obvious that you have not used Mandriva Linux, because if you did, you would know your comments are wrong.
I think the best was to sum-up your TROLL is "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink."
Your assessment leaves a lot to be desired. Mandriva releases betas all the time. I seriously doubt they have *ANY* interest at all in MS or any other type of aquisition.
Mandriva is not a fly-by-night company. And desipte your anti-Mandriva "sloppy seconds" and "miniscule commercial share" drivel, there are probably just as many people in the world running Mandrake/Mandriva Linux as there are Redhat and Fedora combined.
Oh yes, gotta prepare all those sites out there so they don't shut out IE7, like they do non-MS browsers. Personally, I think it would be refreshing for IE7 users to see something like:
"We are sorry, but we don't support your browser. Please upgrade to the latest Internet Explorer. We don't believe in standard HTML."
Slashdot Mirror
Better to have some open-source birth control. There would be a whole lot less suffering in the world...
MS *NEVER* has to release the code for MS-Office. If it were ported to X, that doesn't make it subject to GPL. Plus, it would not be difficult for them to hide code in MS-Office that determines which Linux Distro it is and only run on the one(s) of their choice. And if they ever did do such a port (which I doubt), it would very much be typical MS style for them to pick and choose which distro(s) they support and lock everyone else out.
>I'm sure Bill would happily pay Linus a million or >two if he could legally prevent Linus from writing >any more code.
Your point is valid, but Linus doesn't code anymore and hasn't for many years. People give that one person ENTIRELY too much credit. Linux is far, far, far, far, far beyond a single person.
So we shouldn't press civil charges on THEFT? You want to leave it up to each business or individual to sue every shoplifter, car theif, or white collar crime?
Does it really matter? Both are illegal and WRONG. Selling it is worse, but I have no sympathy for people being fined or arrested for "sharing", which is still stealing. As long as the methods for catching them are not violating privacy.
Tell that to my computer-challenged mother, who uses Linux. A friend at work who uses Linux and has no idea how to admin it. My best freind's 68-year-old father, who uses Linux.
Linux doesn't *HAVE* to be any harder to install or use than any other OS.
That is just plain silly. Indeed just about every Linux distribution is nearly the same, once it is installed. So yes, they are "basically the same". And yes, "Linux" is commonly used to denote an "operating system" and that is fine. Beats the hell out of saying "A GNU/Linux/X/KDE/Gnome/etc Open Source Based Operating System combined by Linspire".
You don't have to "port" Linux applications from one distribution to another. The only thing you really need to know when jumping from one distro to another is what shared libs are available. And you need to consider that even within the SAME distro at different release points.
And MacOS-10 is significantly different from most BSD Distributions. Most notably being the non-X GUI.
> Guess it depends on definitions. Fedora isn't a >retail desktop Linux distribution, is it? Not really. But Mandriva is. And it can be had retail or free. SuSe personal can be had retail or free also.
Video player:
mplayer can play just about anything out there, as long as you obtain the correct codes. Check out plf.zarb.org and the "win32-codecs" rpm. With it, mplayer will magically know how to play all the things can can't do by default (because of copyrights on the DLL's or stupid software patents).
I predict you will find "much happiness"
That is exactly what Mandriva does. They were one of the first distros (or THE first) to support *ALL* the desktop enviornments seamlessly (Kde, gnome, ice, blackbox, fce, etc) and all the configuration tools work the same in all of them. Icing on the cake is Mandriva's menu manager which automatically creates a standard "start" menu for every desktop environment and keeps them all synchronized when you add or remove software.
Because the general look and feel of the Linux GUI is going to depend on the desktop environment chosen. The two major ones are KDE and Gnome. If you keep trying different distro and notice similarity in KDE, for example, then that is because the distro has decided not to completely hack up the defaults. I will tell you that Knoppix doesn't look at all like Fedora, which doesn't look at all like Mandriva. Choice is usually a "good thing", and you can also customize your environment to no end.
Ubuntu is a nice distro. But it is not as easy (or pretty) to install, configure, and use. But that doesn't mean it is inferior, just different. It has other strengths.
Your key issue will depend entirely on the desktop environment you chose. If you use KDE, the MS-Win key (ug) will immediately bring up the "start" menu, regardless of which virtual desktop you are using. KDE is very configurable, so you can change the behavior of such keys as you see fit. As for Win-F, it pulls up the search for me. As for Nautalis... that is just but one choice for Email clients. Why not try Kmail?
Mandriva offers torrents for all the current flavors of the distro, but not for the beta/Cooker versions (not typically).
My experience with torrents are mixed. Sometimes it is wonderful, other times it is a nightmare... Still, I do agree that there should be a torrent for it.
>they want money before you try
BZZZT! Wrong! Mandrake/Mandriva have ALWAYS had both a free and commercial version. The free version is *EASILY* obtained from COUNTLESS mirror sites. The only difference between the two is that the commercial version includes support and copyrighted (non-GPL) packages.
Yikes, my last comment looked like crappola! Let me try a little formatting...
> Will my graphics card work?
Worked fine for me on the dozens of different machines I have installed 10.2 on
> Will I have sound?
Worked fine for me on the dozens of different machines I have installed 10.2 on
>Will it take 2 weeks and constant forum trolling
> to find solutions to my problems?
It depends on who and how you ask, and what it is about...
>Will I have a consitant interface that doesn't
>change from one area of the OS to another?
Yes and no. If you want to limit your choices, then yes. If you want to explore applications that use different libraries/toolkits, no. Linux has no single "GUI" or user interface. It is both a blessing and a curse.
>Will I have all of the creature-features I'm used
>to in Windows?
Like what? I can do everything I want with Linux and have done so for a decade. Are there some types of applications missing? Yes, but not many. I would prefer more choices, but one step at a time.
>I'm still partially on the Linux bandwagon, but
>my last series of experiences left me a little
>less excited.
Your experience is going to vary GREATLY depending on the hardware you choose, which distro is selected, and how it is installed/configured. Your best bet is to hook up with a local user's group.
> Will my graphics card work? Worked fine for me on the dozens of different machines I have installed 10.2 on > Will I have sound? Worked fine for me on the dozens of different machines I have installed 10.2 on >Will it take 2 weeks and constant forum trolling > to find solutions to my problems? It depends on who and how you ask, and what it is about... >Will I have a consitant interface that doesn't >change from one area of the OS to another? Yes and no. If you want to limit your choices, then yes. If you want to explore applications that use different libraries/toolkits, no. Linux has no single "GUI" or user interface. It is both a blessing and a curse. >Will I have all of the creature-features I'm used >to in Windows? Like what? I can do everything I want with Linux and have done so for a decade. Are there some types of applications missing? Yes, but not many. I would prefer more choices, but one step at a time. >I'm still partially on the Linux bandwagon, but >my last series of experiences left me a little >less excited. Your experience is going to vary GREATLY depending on the hardware you choose, which distro is selected, and how it is installed/configured. Your best bet is to hook up with a local user's group.
There might be too many distros, but don't make it sound like Mandrake/Mandriva is something new. It is a major distro and has been for many years. And there is quite a bit of difference between Mandriva Linux and, let's say, Fedora Core, or SuSe. They use different installation methods, have different hardware detection capabilities, and different administration tools.
Booting from a USB device is determined by the computer BIOS, not the OS. If your BIOS supports booting off a USB device, then Linux can be booted that way, including Mandriva.
Your comments are completely WRONG. Mandrake was *THE FIRST* disto to offer journaling filesystems. For many years, they has offered reiserfs, then they added ext3 when it came out, then added xfs and jfs when THEY came out. The default filesystem has been ext3 for at least three years now. You may now crawl back under the rock that trolls live under.
If you purchased hardware that works with Linux then it would make things a lot easier. In any case, Mandrake/Mandriva includes ndiswrapper, which will allow almost all wifi cards to work under Linux that are not natively supported. This is nothing new.
It is obvious that you have not used Mandriva Linux, because if you did, you would know your comments are wrong. I think the best was to sum-up your TROLL is "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink."
Your assessment leaves a lot to be desired. Mandriva releases betas all the time. I seriously doubt they have *ANY* interest at all in MS or any other type of aquisition. Mandriva is not a fly-by-night company. And desipte your anti-Mandriva "sloppy seconds" and "miniscule commercial share" drivel, there are probably just as many people in the world running Mandrake/Mandriva Linux as there are Redhat and Fedora combined.
Oh yes, gotta prepare all those sites out there so they don't shut out IE7, like they do non-MS browsers. Personally, I think it would be refreshing for IE7 users to see something like: "We are sorry, but we don't support your browser. Please upgrade to the latest Internet Explorer. We don't believe in standard HTML."
We have been using webcalendar (webcal) from Zou for several years now. It is wonderful.
1) Easy to use
2) Nice interface
3) Very stable, have yet to have a data problem
4) Very portable and compatible
Sure, there are things missing I wish it had, like syncing to Palm Pilots, but it is really great. And it is free.
As far as I am aware, Fedora is the ONLY Linux distribution that doesn't include an mp3 player.