After 10+ years of configuring a Windows box, I think I know what I'm doing. Besides, I thought the claim was that Linux is just too difficult to set up for Window's users. Configuring a Window's box isn't really that hard at all, even for an idiot, it's just a pain in the ass.
Howso? First of all, windows can run xfree... *busted*
Secondly, I use Firefox generally on Linux but have used it on my girlfriend's windows computer. The one thing she has told me is that she loves Firefox and that it's much more stable. As far as I know she hasn't managed to crash the system with it yet and I switched her to Firefox in the first place because IE was crashing constantly.
Is it a Visioneer by any chance? I got one for free once and it only worked with ME. I couldn't switch completey from ME to 2000 because it wouldn't work under 2000. It works fine under various flavors of Linux.
As a Windows user, I think I'm spoiled. I love having a simple, unified interface shared by almost all the programs I use.
Get real. Even Microsoft programs don't share the same interface as each other. KDE or Gnome are much better in this respect. Other Linux programs may not fit in so well, but neither do third party programs on windows. Your claim is bogus.
I like having simple configuration dialogs for almost all my programs which let me easily change program settings, instead of messing around with obsure configuration files. I'm glad I don't have to spend hours trying to find a good program to do what I want, I just want one that works well enough and is easy to set up and use.
I could spend hours searching the web for the right windows program to do the job, then probably have to buy it, but instead I search for 30 seconds with my package manager and install it in no time. Even if I have to tweak some config files, it still takes me less time than tracking it down on the web.
I don't need 50 different packages that all try to do the same thing, I just need one good program that actually does it.
Have you been to tucows or other similar sites. There are more random windows programs than Linux ones. The only difference is that Free Software is generally much better than Freeware.
I like having my programs and commands have names that actually make sense, not things like "grep", "GIMP", "X".
Is this a serious gripe or just whining?
I like the compatibility I share with 90% of the world. And then there are, of course, the games that I play. If I'm lucky, I might be able to get three or four of them to play well under Linux, not the entire library I have access to under Windows.
A valid argument for once. It doesn't apply for everyone though. Not everyone is into 3D games, or games in general. I'm fine with solitaire, and mahjong.
Linux computers may come with more pre-installed software on a CD, but if I have the money, I can get a Windows computer set up the same way. Most manufacturers would be happy to include a copy of Office if you're willing to pay. Besides, the time it'd take for me to learn how to use all the Linux equivilents of my Windows programs would probably offset any advantage gained by pre-installation.
Sure, if I was bloody rich. I would have to spend at least $5,000 dollars to get the equivalent programs on Windows. The "hassle" is not worth that much money. I'd rather take the ten minutes to learn how to use the program. I'm not that lazy.
As for stability, well, my Windows XP computer has been performing very well over the past few years. I can't say for sure that it's never crashed, but it's smooth enough that it's simply not a problem anymore, compared to past versions of Windows. In other words, it's stable enough.
You're lucky then. I've had no such luck with either 2000 or XP. XP crashed twice a day and SuSe did fine on the same hardware.
From my perspective as a basic desktop computer user, the only thing Linux has going for it is the cost (usually zero) and perhaps security. I don't need all the complexity and openness of Linux, as it all just adds up to a more difficult-to-use environment. Also, I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to secure a Linux system properly, so I don't know whether my system would be any safer anyway.
Securing a Linux system is much less work than securing a windows system. You don't have to spend a half hour just configuring the damn web browser to be slighty more secure then the swiss cheese default settings.
So, am I jealous? No, not at all. I'm not saying Linux or open source is bad in any way (in fact, Firefox, CDex, OpenOffice, etc. are all very high quality), just that it's not the heavenly object the article makes it out to be. Maybe we're all spoiled.
Maybe, but if the hell of using windows is considered being "spoiled" then I certainly don't want to see what a bad computing experience is like.
I have used it. I love it and prefer it as my main browser, but it is not stable. I have not tried the 0.9x versions yet, but on 0.6, 0.7, and 0.8 on two different loads of Windows (first 2000 and then XP), the thing often just disappears from my screen without so much as a warning, error, or anything. Just poof! Gone!
I always had the opposite problem with IE. It wouldn't go away. It would freeze and then take the whole system down with it. I haven't even been able to crash X because of Firefox, nevermind the kernel.
IE is not compromised so often just because it's poorly written, but because it's so popular that hordes of script kiddies are trying out every possible hack.
Hmmm. Mozilla doesn't have ActiveX. Mozilla actually releases updates. Nuff said.
This is a big problem for free software. I don't have to pay. I am willing to pay for software if there is a price, but if the price is zero but please donate..sorry, I'll pay zero. It is an unfortuante business model for the free software providers, I honestly don't know how any of them stay in business.
Not many companies are in the business of selling open source software, Mozilla included. Mozilla isn't even a company for that matter. The companies that do offer open source software often don't ask for donations, but charge for support instead.
It appears that CERT is officially under DoHS - at least that is what Yahoo implies.
Keep in mind that this is the same DoHS that got a D+ in computer security a few months ago.
That would explain why it took them this long to find out how insecure IE is.
HA. Somehow your definition of a shitty piece of hardware went from a 20 MB drive to a 120 GB Seagate. That's a terrible way to attempt to justify yourself.
FYI, if you build systems and you have a SATA capable MoBo then you will have to install drivers for that SATA controller. XP does not include drivers for them. I guess Abit and Asus boards are shitty in your opinion. I assure you they are not the only boards with SATA controllers that are not supported by windows.
Sounds like you had some shitty hardware if your hard drive wasnt even supported by Windows. I've never heard of that. Heard of the lame excuses about sound cards or modems not working, but your hard drive? What did you have? some 15 year old model 20MB hard drive?
Bullshit. SATA drives are NOT supported by Windows XP. My brand-spanking-new Seagate 120 GB SATA drive would not work without loading Seagate's drivers during the install. XP does not have drivers for it.
The difference here is that MS is funding known shills. They didn't go out of their way to find a highly respected institute. They went straight to the whores.
You do not need a license to buy a car - you need a license to operate a car, and the standards for getting that license is defined by the state, not the federal government
You know what I meant. You need a license to operate a car, and you should to fire a weapon.
And if you think that the waiting period and police check to buy a gun is a guarantee of standards, you're sorely mistaken - the waiting period is to prevent crimes of passion, and the background check is to make sure the buyer isn't a felon prohibited from owning a gun.
That's a much better situation than not checking the background of the person buying a gun. From the looks of it you support stronger gun control. So do I.
Hell, I can't even get a bloody handgun without telling the government who I am and why I want one.
Thank god for that. The last thing we need is a total lack of standards for who gets to own a gun and who doesn't. If it's really people killing people, and not guns, then we better be sure we know who is getting those guns and if they are qualified to own one. You need a license to buy a car and there better be more stingent laws in place to regulate gun ownership and use.
Hmm...think this might have something to do with where the majority of CRIME is being committed? Logically, they should be in the area of highest crime...
That's a common misconception. There is little crime in my area but you'll definitely find more crime if this is the only place that you are looking. The high rollers get away with much more because white collar crime is so much more acceptable to society in general.
A civil war where the civilians as a whole attack the military is ONLY occupation.
It's not an occupation when military forces are fighting in their own country. The logistics are totally different, and much more in favor of the military when they are fighting on their own turf.
War machines aren't invulnerable. They just look impressive to clueless naysayer civilians.
Do you honestly think a civilian army could stand a chance against the government's weapons of mass destruction? War machines don't just "look impressive". Those war machines made a quick job of Iraq. The problem now is occupation, which would not be a problem if the war was civil. The military wouldn't have to stray very far from its infrastructure. I don't doubt for a second the government would do ANYTHING in its power to retain control of this country if it came to that.
Decentralization of power will not produce the results you desire, because we are by nature a social,alpha-dominated society.
The difference between humans and another alpha dominated society, namely wolves, is that we have the ability to reason. That fact alone should negate the impossibility of decentralization as you see it. I thought that is what seperated humans from animals, the fact that we don't need to survive on instinct. We can overcome any situation with our ability to reason. We should start putting this to use and stop making excuses as to why human nature just won't let us live any other way.
Decentralizing power completely would be thinking that all men and women are equally capable, or even that all men and women are born with identical potential. This is untrue, as there are genetic dispositions to intelligence, good looks, health...
Decentralization does not require making everyone totally equal. It has to do with making people more equal, which I believe is a good thing, as the disparity between rich and poor is unjustifiable. Decentralization does not require, or guarantee total equality. It is simple a way to decrease heavily localised power, which as we all know corrupts.
Likewise 4- just try to talk about racism with a kid growing up in a ghetto sometime, they are VERY envious, and have a tendency to mask that envy with racism ("white cops are picking on us!").
I hate to burst your bubble but that's reality, not racism, and to label every kid in the ghetto as envious is a total misconception. I live in a town that is basically divided into two sections. One section is a white, upperclass, society, and the other, where I live, is lowerclass and has many more minorities than whites. I am white but I learned a lot from living here. The cops practically live on my street. When I go to the center of town, where all the little shops are and where all the rich people live, I never see a single cop. They don't really ever leave my part of town unless called. Their presence puts a lot of pressure and stress on the people who live here. It feels like you are always being watched, and that feeling causes a lot of friction.
Slashdot Mirror
After 10+ years of configuring a Windows box, I think I know what I'm doing. Besides, I thought the claim was that Linux is just too difficult to set up for Window's users. Configuring a Window's box isn't really that hard at all, even for an idiot, it's just a pain in the ass.
Shitty winmodems maybe, but anything that's not a total piece of crap will work. Hell, even the winmodem in my laptop works!
I wouldn't want to get one working in Windows anyway. They are buggy, inefficient, piles of junk.
The situation is made worse by that ONE guy on the messageboard who will always provide the genius solution of recompiling the kernel.
That's not necessary. You can compile the module seperately, then load it.
Secondly, I use Firefox generally on Linux but have used it on my girlfriend's windows computer. The one thing she has told me is that she loves Firefox and that it's much more stable. As far as I know she hasn't managed to crash the system with it yet and I switched her to Firefox in the first place because IE was crashing constantly.
Is it a Visioneer by any chance? I got one for free once and it only worked with ME. I couldn't switch completey from ME to 2000 because it wouldn't work under 2000. It works fine under various flavors of Linux.
Get real. Even Microsoft programs don't share the same interface as each other. KDE or Gnome are much better in this respect. Other Linux programs may not fit in so well, but neither do third party programs on windows. Your claim is bogus.
I like having simple configuration dialogs for almost all my programs which let me easily change program settings, instead of messing around with obsure configuration files. I'm glad I don't have to spend hours trying to find a good program to do what I want, I just want one that works well enough and is easy to set up and use.
I could spend hours searching the web for the right windows program to do the job, then probably have to buy it, but instead I search for 30 seconds with my package manager and install it in no time. Even if I have to tweak some config files, it still takes me less time than tracking it down on the web.
I don't need 50 different packages that all try to do the same thing, I just need one good program that actually does it.
Have you been to tucows or other similar sites. There are more random windows programs than Linux ones. The only difference is that Free Software is generally much better than Freeware.
I like having my programs and commands have names that actually make sense, not things like "grep", "GIMP", "X".
Is this a serious gripe or just whining?
I like the compatibility I share with 90% of the world. And then there are, of course, the games that I play. If I'm lucky, I might be able to get three or four of them to play well under Linux, not the entire library I have access to under Windows.
A valid argument for once. It doesn't apply for everyone though. Not everyone is into 3D games, or games in general. I'm fine with solitaire, and mahjong.
Linux computers may come with more pre-installed software on a CD, but if I have the money, I can get a Windows computer set up the same way. Most manufacturers would be happy to include a copy of Office if you're willing to pay. Besides, the time it'd take for me to learn how to use all the Linux equivilents of my Windows programs would probably offset any advantage gained by pre-installation.
Sure, if I was bloody rich. I would have to spend at least $5,000 dollars to get the equivalent programs on Windows. The "hassle" is not worth that much money. I'd rather take the ten minutes to learn how to use the program. I'm not that lazy.
As for stability, well, my Windows XP computer has been performing very well over the past few years. I can't say for sure that it's never crashed, but it's smooth enough that it's simply not a problem anymore, compared to past versions of Windows. In other words, it's stable enough.
You're lucky then. I've had no such luck with either 2000 or XP. XP crashed twice a day and SuSe did fine on the same hardware.
From my perspective as a basic desktop computer user, the only thing Linux has going for it is the cost (usually zero) and perhaps security. I don't need all the complexity and openness of Linux, as it all just adds up to a more difficult-to-use environment. Also, I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to secure a Linux system properly, so I don't know whether my system would be any safer anyway.
Securing a Linux system is much less work than securing a windows system. You don't have to spend a half hour just configuring the damn web browser to be slighty more secure then the swiss cheese default settings.
So, am I jealous? No, not at all. I'm not saying Linux or open source is bad in any way (in fact, Firefox, CDex, OpenOffice, etc. are all very high quality), just that it's not the heavenly object the article makes it out to be. Maybe we're all spoiled.
Maybe, but if the hell of using windows is considered being "spoiled" then I certainly don't want to see what a bad computing experience is like.
I always had the opposite problem with IE. It wouldn't go away. It would freeze and then take the whole system down with it. I haven't even been able to crash X because of Firefox, nevermind the kernel.
Hmmm. Mozilla doesn't have ActiveX. Mozilla actually releases updates. Nuff said.
Have you used Firefox? It's more stable than IE. I'm sure people will be presently surprised at how much less their browser crashes.
Not many companies are in the business of selling open source software, Mozilla included. Mozilla isn't even a company for that matter. The companies that do offer open source software often don't ask for donations, but charge for support instead.
That would explain why it took them this long to find out how insecure IE is.
My mistake. I meant to say that I had to load drivers from Abit for the SATA controller.
FYI, if you build systems and you have a SATA capable MoBo then you will have to install drivers for that SATA controller. XP does not include drivers for them. I guess Abit and Asus boards are shitty in your opinion. I assure you they are not the only boards with SATA controllers that are not supported by windows.
Office is 150.
Exactly dumbass. It's in the PREAMBLE for a reason. It's not a part of the licensing terms.
Bullshit. SATA drives are NOT supported by Windows XP. My brand-spanking-new Seagate 120 GB SATA drive would not work without loading Seagate's drivers during the install. XP does not have drivers for it.
You're downright stupid if you think that happens when you use the GPL.
The difference here is that MS is funding known shills. They didn't go out of their way to find a highly respected institute. They went straight to the whores.
You know what I meant. You need a license to operate a car, and you should to fire a weapon.
And if you think that the waiting period and police check to buy a gun is a guarantee of standards, you're sorely mistaken - the waiting period is to prevent crimes of passion, and the background check is to make sure the buyer isn't a felon prohibited from owning a gun.
That's a much better situation than not checking the background of the person buying a gun. From the looks of it you support stronger gun control. So do I.
Thank god for that. The last thing we need is a total lack of standards for who gets to own a gun and who doesn't. If it's really people killing people, and not guns, then we better be sure we know who is getting those guns and if they are qualified to own one. You need a license to buy a car and there better be more stingent laws in place to regulate gun ownership and use.
That's a common misconception. There is little crime in my area but you'll definitely find more crime if this is the only place that you are looking. The high rollers get away with much more because white collar crime is so much more acceptable to society in general.
It's not an occupation when military forces are fighting in their own country. The logistics are totally different, and much more in favor of the military when they are fighting on their own turf.
Do you honestly think a civilian army could stand a chance against the government's weapons of mass destruction? War machines don't just "look impressive". Those war machines made a quick job of Iraq. The problem now is occupation, which would not be a problem if the war was civil. The military wouldn't have to stray very far from its infrastructure. I don't doubt for a second the government would do ANYTHING in its power to retain control of this country if it came to that.
I know some Buddhists that would take issue with that statement, if they took issue with anything!
The difference between humans and another alpha dominated society, namely wolves, is that we have the ability to reason. That fact alone should negate the impossibility of decentralization as you see it. I thought that is what seperated humans from animals, the fact that we don't need to survive on instinct. We can overcome any situation with our ability to reason. We should start putting this to use and stop making excuses as to why human nature just won't let us live any other way.
Decentralizing power completely would be thinking that all men and women are equally capable, or even that all men and women are born with identical potential. This is untrue, as there are genetic dispositions to intelligence, good looks, health...
Decentralization does not require making everyone totally equal. It has to do with making people more equal, which I believe is a good thing, as the disparity between rich and poor is unjustifiable. Decentralization does not require, or guarantee total equality. It is simple a way to decrease heavily localised power, which as we all know corrupts.
I hate to burst your bubble but that's reality, not racism, and to label every kid in the ghetto as envious is a total misconception. I live in a town that is basically divided into two sections. One section is a white, upperclass, society, and the other, where I live, is lowerclass and has many more minorities than whites. I am white but I learned a lot from living here. The cops practically live on my street. When I go to the center of town, where all the little shops are and where all the rich people live, I never see a single cop. They don't really ever leave my part of town unless called. Their presence puts a lot of pressure and stress on the people who live here. It feels like you are always being watched, and that feeling causes a lot of friction.