Given the Diebold machines are easily hacked, "seemed to be designed to allow for tampering", and factoring in the unwillingness of voting boards to change in the next two months, we're screwed?
Seems Dubya is a shoe-in, probably why he's not doing jack squat recently.. knows he's going to win.
1. Installing a program isn't any harder. Let's say I wanted to install Mozilla for windows. I'd have to 1. Open my Browser, 2. Go to mozilla.org, 3. click on Downloads, 4. Scroll down to Mozilla, 5. Click on Windows, 6. Click save to disk, 7. Click ok, 8. Pick a location, 9.. you get the point. This doesn't even delve into the choices requred by the installer. Now let's look at a tool like emerge (obviously there's more than one way to go through this but I'll choose a longer sample route) 1. Click icon or menu to open up a terminal, 2. Type su, 3. Enter root password, 4. type 'emerge mozilla', 5. Sit back and wait. How hard is that? It's less steps, and the user input time is faster. Yes, in total it will take longer if you compile from source rather than use the precompiled binary, but the precompiled would be used by apt-get or swaret which are both more widely used than emerge.
2. Not searching for a good term? How the freak is that any different than windows? Even when searching for a good term Windows built in help is mostly useless. If any distros out there such a thing built in.. great.. I hope it is more effective than Windows help. If you look on a site like linuxquestions you'll see a lot of new users who ask questions like that. It's okay, people will respond and dig up the info they need to answer the question.
3. Yeah, Joe Sixpack shouldn't be worried about kernel compiles without a LUG or someone to help him out the first time.
4. My point was to the new user most things will be difficult the first time. I don't believe installing or configuring hardware is really any harder in Linux save a few cases.
NineNine,
First off, being this is the/. crowd I skipped the particulars. Let's assume we're talking joe clueless then:
I put the CD in, now what? Oh, I have to click My Computer? Ok. Ooh, I have to double-click? Open my CD-ROM, what's that? Double click on setup.exe, what's an.exe? Ok. It's asking me where to install it to, what's a "cee colon slash Program Files?"...
My point is using linux not hard or even harder. There's learning curve involved just like any other piece of software. These authors seem to want to bash on Linux because they equate different with harder. I'm saying it's not.
And yeah, the average person wouldn't understand kernel compiling. You know what? I know jack shit about registry hacking. Never needed to learn how to do it, so I don't know how. Joe User would be using a major distro's kernel and doesn't really need to recompile a kernel.
Personally, I'm sick of these "Linux is too hard to use comments". People keep saying Linux won't be ready for the desktop until it is as easy to use as Windows. Do you even know any "Joe Users"? I'll tell ya this, my parents can't install new hardware or fix what I would call simple issues in WinXP. If a program is acting funny, they're lost. They have to call me or the PC manufactuer for help. Want to know how proficient the "average" or "slightly geeky" user is? Watch Screen Savers or Call for Help on TechTV. Most people can't figure out the simplest of issues. Whenever someone writes a "Linux still isn't there" article they assume that the average user is an expert in all things Windows. The truth is , they're not. So what makes Linux so much harder to learn/use than Windows?
Here's what I think about linux:
1. Installing a program isn't any harder. Windows install.. insert CD, click OK and Next a bunch of times and it's done. Linux install.. do an emerge, apt-get, swaret, etc, sit back and wait. Yeah, Linux is hard. One command to me is easier than navigating to a webpage, filling in some stupid personal info questions, downloading an executable, navigating to that executable then double clicking.
2. Something doesn't work right? Windows way... call your manufacturer or a geeky friend to help out. Linux way.. search on linuxquestions.org or your distro's forums. 99% of the time your answer is already in those forums. Some program throwing out some weird error? Search online, you'll find a ton of fixes. Yeah, Linux is hard.
3. Recompiling a kernel? It's really not that hard. There are a ton of walkthroughs on the internet.
4. Hardware support. Windows has plug and play which is really great... when it works. How many times have you tried to install a piece of hardware where Windows didn't correctly recognize it, or didn't recognize it at all? Me, probably at least a dozen times. In Linux every stock kernel I've seen a distro supply has just about everything compiled as a module. The only reason I've ever had hardware not be autodetected and set up is when that manufacturer explicitly wouldn't allow for OSS support (D-Link + series wireless cards with the TI chip).
So in summation, stop with the whiny articles about Linux isn't ready for the desktop. It is. Many people use it for both home and production machines. If it's not ready for people to use then why are there 78,919 projects hosted on sourceforge.net? That's an awful lot of software for such an unusable OS. If you want to complain that Linux isn't ready for the mass desktop to be used by Joe Doesn't_know_jack_about_PCs_user then I say neither is Windows.
SCO just released their 8-k about the $50m "investment"
Interesting to note is that MSFT has paid them $21m this year for "licensing options" of the UNIX source code.
Prior to SCO's claims, their market cap was $10m.
Does the picture become clearer?
Slashdot Mirror
www.dictionary.com - try looking up humor.
and KDE stands for: Krappy Desktop Environment!
Given the Diebold machines are easily hacked, "seemed to be designed to allow for tampering", and factoring in the unwillingness of voting boards to change in the next two months, we're screwed? Seems Dubya is a shoe-in, probably why he's not doing jack squat recently.. knows he's going to win.
1. Installing a program isn't any harder. Let's say I wanted to install Mozilla for windows. I'd have to 1. Open my Browser, 2. Go to mozilla.org, 3. click on Downloads, 4. Scroll down to Mozilla, 5. Click on Windows, 6. Click save to disk, 7. Click ok, 8. Pick a location, 9.. you get the point. This doesn't even delve into the choices requred by the installer. Now let's look at a tool like emerge (obviously there's more than one way to go through this but I'll choose a longer sample route) 1. Click icon or menu to open up a terminal, 2. Type su, 3. Enter root password, 4. type 'emerge mozilla', 5. Sit back and wait. How hard is that? It's less steps, and the user input time is faster. Yes, in total it will take longer if you compile from source rather than use the precompiled binary, but the precompiled would be used by apt-get or swaret which are both more widely used than emerge.
2. Not searching for a good term? How the freak is that any different than windows? Even when searching for a good term Windows built in help is mostly useless. If any distros out there such a thing built in.. great.. I hope it is more effective than Windows help. If you look on a site like linuxquestions you'll see a lot of new users who ask questions like that. It's okay, people will respond and dig up the info they need to answer the question.
3. Yeah, Joe Sixpack shouldn't be worried about kernel compiles without a LUG or someone to help him out the first time.
4. My point was to the new user most things will be difficult the first time. I don't believe installing or configuring hardware is really any harder in Linux save a few cases.
NineNine, First off, being this is the /. crowd I skipped the particulars. Let's assume we're talking joe clueless then:
.exe? Ok. It's asking me where to install it to, what's a "cee colon slash Program Files?"...
I put the CD in, now what? Oh, I have to click My Computer? Ok. Ooh, I have to double-click? Open my CD-ROM, what's that? Double click on setup.exe, what's an
My point is using linux not hard or even harder. There's learning curve involved just like any other piece of software. These authors seem to want to bash on Linux because they equate different with harder. I'm saying it's not.
And yeah, the average person wouldn't understand kernel compiling. You know what? I know jack shit about registry hacking. Never needed to learn how to do it, so I don't know how. Joe User would be using a major distro's kernel and doesn't really need to recompile a kernel.
You sound like someone who had a bad experience with .rpms. Guess what? So did I.
.rpms like the plague.
One of the main difference between distros is their package management so I avoid
Stick with apt-get, swaret, and emerge and see how easy software installation CAN BE.
Personally, I'm sick of these "Linux is too hard to use comments". People keep saying Linux won't be ready for the desktop until it is as easy to use as Windows. Do you even know any "Joe Users"? I'll tell ya this, my parents can't install new hardware or fix what I would call simple issues in WinXP. If a program is acting funny, they're lost. They have to call me or the PC manufactuer for help. Want to know how proficient the "average" or "slightly geeky" user is? Watch Screen Savers or Call for Help on TechTV. Most people can't figure out the simplest of issues. Whenever someone writes a "Linux still isn't there" article they assume that the average user is an expert in all things Windows. The truth is , they're not. So what makes Linux so much harder to learn/use than Windows?
Here's what I think about linux:
1. Installing a program isn't any harder. Windows install.. insert CD, click OK and Next a bunch of times and it's done. Linux install.. do an emerge, apt-get, swaret, etc, sit back and wait. Yeah, Linux is hard. One command to me is easier than navigating to a webpage, filling in some stupid personal info questions, downloading an executable, navigating to that executable then double clicking.
2. Something doesn't work right? Windows way... call your manufacturer or a geeky friend to help out. Linux way.. search on linuxquestions.org or your distro's forums. 99% of the time your answer is already in those forums. Some program throwing out some weird error? Search online, you'll find a ton of fixes. Yeah, Linux is hard.
3. Recompiling a kernel? It's really not that hard. There are a ton of walkthroughs on the internet.
4. Hardware support. Windows has plug and play which is really great... when it works. How many times have you tried to install a piece of hardware where Windows didn't correctly recognize it, or didn't recognize it at all? Me, probably at least a dozen times. In Linux every stock kernel I've seen a distro supply has just about everything compiled as a module. The only reason I've ever had hardware not be autodetected and set up is when that manufacturer explicitly wouldn't allow for OSS support (D-Link + series wireless cards with the TI chip).
So in summation, stop with the whiny articles about Linux isn't ready for the desktop. It is. Many people use it for both home and production machines. If it's not ready for people to use then why are there 78,919 projects hosted on sourceforge.net? That's an awful lot of software for such an unusable OS. If you want to complain that Linux isn't ready for the mass desktop to be used by Joe Doesn't_know_jack_about_PCs_user then I say neither is Windows.
Powerbook, iPod, digital camera all in a $100 european plumber's bag? He must have forgotten to write down tampons.
SCO just released their 8-k about the $50m "investment" Interesting to note is that MSFT has paid them $21m this year for "licensing options" of the UNIX source code. Prior to SCO's claims, their market cap was $10m. Does the picture become clearer?