>>As far as I know, they are the only (stupid?) company to commercially support Linux platform and have a DRM capable program since they (stupidly) care about your OS.
I'ld be more impressed if the player didn't suck.
>>One day, they remove "linux" from that drop down list, I wonder who loses. After 3-5 unstable builds, your Mplayer supports half of the formats they currently give away for free. No worries.
I don't know what you're talking about. On my computer, Mplayer plays realmedia better than realplayer does, with no "unstable builds", in fact it was much easier to install mplayer than real. Are you saying that if real stopped supporting linux that mplayer wouldn't play those files anymore? But mplayer plays windows media just fine, and microsoft has never supported linux.
I appreciate the gesture that real made by making realplayer for linux, I just wish it was actually useful.
>>I've always hated RealPlayer, but on the Mac their product is seriously nice. Most of all, what else would you use to play real-streams on the web? Br>
I use mplayer. Realplayer would never play the sound right for some reason on my computer, but I set up firefox to play realmedia with mplayer instead and since then it's been perfect.
>>I do not recall either, but I guess parent was challenging you on the ease of use concept instead of the number of desktop icons.
Saying it's easier to have your desktop cluttered by icons instead of using the menus is entirely subjective. Using whatever desktop is out there, be it osx win or linux, requires you to deal with menus for basic operations, so a clearly labeled install/uninstall programs menu entry offers no particular challenges.
To the I-only-know-windows-and-even-that-just-barely crowd that Linspire is targeting, the desktop is *very* important. Menus can be confusing, *especially* on a new computer or operating system. On top of that, Windows users don't expect to go through the menu to find an install/uninstall program, they're used to going to the internet to download programs. Seeing a browser icon on the desktop that says "install new programs" (or whatever it says) makes sense to windows users in a way that a menu item never ever could.
>>The preview of installed apps is a clear advantage over no preview, of course. But how many times would a screenshot be relevant over a text description that every package manager offers? and does it justify paying for a subscription?
The subscription price isn't worth it to me, because I'm happy with apt-get. But apt-get is not intuitive, and even synaptic you need someone to teach it to you. Linspire's CNR could be the difference that lets a new linux user figure out how to install new programs all on their own, versus giving up and going back to Windows. That I think is very valuble.
>>Old school low res games just aren't going to look their best on large screen hidef tv's.
Yeah, and hidef games just don't that good on old school low res tvs. I can't afford a hidef tv, and I like the fact that there will a new console that isn't insanely expensive because of graphical enhancements that won't show up on my tv.
You want a hidef game console, then PS3 and 360 are for you. But I'm happy that I won't have to spend on on a console just to make you (and everyone else with hidef) happy.
>>'m not saying you're not right, but from that description it sounds exactly like both Ubuntu's "light-weight" synaptic (I don't know what they call it, apart from "Add or remove software") and FC's Pirut. Is there any significant difference?
I don't remember seeing an icon on my desktop for synaptic when I first installed Ubuntu. Also, Ubuntu's synaptic and apt-get don't always put shortcuts to the program in the applications menu, which was really frustrating to me until I figured out where it was installing things.
I think the biggest benefit of Click-and-Run is that it makes installing programs easy for Windows users trying to figure out linux. On Windows, "Add and Remove Programs" isn't very useful for adding programs; Windows users are used to going to the web and finding the programs they want to install. While the programs in synaptic are technically on the web, they're not in a browser and that's not intuitive for Windows users. Click and Run makes it intuitive for them.
>>In OS X all you have to do is drag it to your Applications Folder (or another folder). Would that be very hard to implement in Linux?
That's basically what I did to install Firefox 1.5 in Ubuntu. Since Mac is also, a *nix, it isn't that hard to make Linux do what Mac does. I however, prefer apt-get, though for newbies the Mac way would be easier.
Well, I'm not going to nitpick with you over your opinions on firefox (though it's much better than you seem to think) but your idea that MS could possibly even be happy that firefox exists, let alone be behind some kind of conspiracy to make it, is completely not fucking based in reality. Firefox has almost double the marketshare of all other non-IE browsers combined. Firefox has more marketshare than Mozilla ever did, and IE now has less marketshare than it's had in a longtime. Hate the interface if you want, but you got to respect firefox for being the first f/oss browser to finally give IE some sort of competition.
Why not just merge KDE and Gnome ? I understand that my statement looks like a troll's dream but it would not be such a bad situation. After all, Firefox is now the main F/OSS web browser with a large dominance among the F/OSS community. And it's not that bad. Why would it be so bad with desktop managers ? Please enlighten me. Thank you.
Before there was Firefox, do you think that Opera and Mozilla should have merged? Would that have been a better solution than making Firefox?
Firefox has gained dominance because it has earned it. If a desktop manager gains dominance, it will (hopefully) have earned it too, but you can't just force something into dominance. KDE and Gnome users like different things. Maybe another desktop manager can take the best of both, or come up with new ways that are better, and convince most users to switch, but that won't happen by forcing two entrenched products to merge.
Now only if Linux guys could get installation of package software through an Installshield type of setup going.
Now see, what really made me fall for Ubuntu is apt-get. It makes installation so much eaiser. I just just type "apt-get install *program*" and then it's there. No hunting down my application and manualling downloading it and then clicking it and then clicking next 80 times and going through stupid options when I could be doing something else. Maybe installing deb and rpms are hard, but I wouldn't know, since everything I've ever wanted to download I've found in apt-get or synaptic. I'ld really hate it if linux started to go in the direction of windows-like installations.
I'm pretty sure they didn't scale up Lavos. My second time beating him was kinda hard, since I only had Marle and Chrono, but all the rest were really easy.
>>Because if an official patch breaks your OS, you can get help for it from Microsoft.
Yeah. I called microsoft tech support after Windows decided not to boot after I upgraded IE, and they told me I could pay them $200 for help. I'm thinking that relying on MS to help you if somehting breaks is a bad plan.
So you tell us that you never use pivot tables in Excel. You never use the rules wizard in Outlook. You are not a power user. You are not responsible for IT purchases where I work. I'm truly thankfull for that!
I use excel every day and I don't even know what the fuck pivot tables are. As for the rules wizard, not that we're talking about Thunderbird, but it's message filters do the same thing and you only have to go through one page of options to set one up, not 8.
Anyways, if MS Office 97 works good for some people, what do you care? Why should companies pay $1,000s of dollars for some extra features that most of their employees don't even understand? Of course, I would suggest they go with modern open source programs instead, but it's their decision and if it works for them, good for them.
Are there really more MEPIS users than Debian users?
I wouldn't be surprised if there are. The popularity of the new, easy-to-use distros has really exploded recently (well, in comparison with linux desktop popularity usually). Mepis is riding the same wave that Ubuntu is, also being an easy-to-use Debian-based Linux.
You should backup everything you want to keep everytime you do something major to your computer (such as upgrading your OS). Actually, you should backup your stuff on a regular basis anyways.
I'm not 100% sure about Fedora, but I know other distros support upgrading while keeping all your programs and settings, so I'm pretty sure Fedora does too. The backup is just a recommendation in case something goes wrong.
>>Why can't the same disability legisation force commercial vendors to adopt the ODF as a supported format?
Why would they do that?
Seriously, why? What does ODF do for people with disabilities?
Sure, it offers the potential, through standardization and openness, to make screenreaders for documents easy to code. Open source could potentially make computing so much easier for people with disabilities. But open source hasn't done anything for people with disabilities yet. They have screenreaders that work with MS Word on Windows. They don't have screenreaders for OpenOffice on Linux. All the potential in the world doesn't change reality today, and the reality is that it's so much easier for people with disabilities to use Windows (and Mac) than it is for them to use Linux, and until that changes they will never support Linux and open source, they will support what supports them.
>>I don't find Ubuntu all that revolutionary in user friendlyness.
I don't know what it is about Ubuntu. If you compare it spec-by-spec to any other user-friendly distro, it doesn't come out ahead. In fact, it could even come out pretty low, considering it's lack of mp3/dvd support, no automounting of windows partitions, and the sound problems that are still pretty prevelant as far as I know. I'm sure you could find more. But for some reason, Ubuntu just clicks with many Linux newbies.
When I was a linux newb (I guess some would say I'm still a newb, but whatever) I tried several distros out, and I even took a basic Red Hat class. Despite my efforts (which, to be fair, weren't exactly my best) I never got comfortable enough on a linux system to use it for any of my day-to-day activities. When I tried Mandrake, I screwed it up trying to install Firefox, and never touched it again. My attempts at other distros didn't go any better, so when my classmates started hyping up Ubuntu, I was skeptical. But I installed in on my spare partition, and booted it up. I expected to only use it for a little, get confused, and reboot to Windows. So I boot it up, clicked on firefox, and set out to do some web surfing. I discovered this Ubuntu faq and I learn about apt-get and absolutely fall in love with it. Instead of spending the few minutes I expected to with Unbutu, I spent days. And when I went back to windows, I exported my firefox bookmarks and stuff, and went right back to ubuntu.
The difference in usability between Ubuntu and other "newbie-friendly" distros like Mandrake for me then was like night and day. Mandrake I couldn't do anything. Ubuntu I could quit windows cold-turkey for, without knowing anything about it beforehand. Now that I know more about linux, it doesn't make sense. There's just something about Ubuntu that just really gets newbs into it, whether that's logical or not.
>>You'll have to pardon me if I hold in low regard a distro in which you can be locked out of your system merely for following the install instructions as written.
I've seen Windows systems refuse to boot after install. It's called bad luck. It's fixed by sticking the install disk back in and clicking "rescue" or "repair". Also, if you're mad at Ubuntu for accidently locking you out of your existing OS, remember that Windows does that by design.
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Appearently table support is one of the things they worked on for this version. You should give it another chance.
>>As far as I know, they are the only (stupid?) company to commercially support Linux platform and have a DRM capable program since they (stupidly) care about your OS.
I'ld be more impressed if the player didn't suck.
>>One day, they remove "linux" from that drop down list, I wonder who loses. After 3-5 unstable builds, your Mplayer supports half of the formats they currently give away for free. No worries.
I don't know what you're talking about. On my computer, Mplayer plays realmedia better than realplayer does, with no "unstable builds", in fact it was much easier to install mplayer than real. Are you saying that if real stopped supporting linux that mplayer wouldn't play those files anymore? But mplayer plays windows media just fine, and microsoft has never supported linux.
I appreciate the gesture that real made by making realplayer for linux, I just wish it was actually useful.
>>I've always hated RealPlayer, but on the Mac their product is seriously nice. Most of all, what else would you use to play real-streams on the web?
Br>
I use mplayer. Realplayer would never play the sound right for some reason on my computer, but I set up firefox to play realmedia with mplayer instead and since then it's been perfect.
>>I do not recall either, but I guess parent was challenging you on the ease of use concept instead of the number of desktop icons. Saying it's easier to have your desktop cluttered by icons instead of using the menus is entirely subjective. Using whatever desktop is out there, be it osx win or linux, requires you to deal with menus for basic operations, so a clearly labeled install/uninstall programs menu entry offers no particular challenges.
To the I-only-know-windows-and-even-that-just-barely crowd that Linspire is targeting, the desktop is *very* important. Menus can be confusing, *especially* on a new computer or operating system. On top of that, Windows users don't expect to go through the menu to find an install/uninstall program, they're used to going to the internet to download programs. Seeing a browser icon on the desktop that says "install new programs" (or whatever it says) makes sense to windows users in a way that a menu item never ever could.
>>The preview of installed apps is a clear advantage over no preview, of course. But how many times would a screenshot be relevant over a text description that every package manager offers? and does it justify paying for a subscription?
The subscription price isn't worth it to me, because I'm happy with apt-get. But apt-get is not intuitive, and even synaptic you need someone to teach it to you. Linspire's CNR could be the difference that lets a new linux user figure out how to install new programs all on their own, versus giving up and going back to Windows. That I think is very valuble.
>>Old school low res games just aren't going to look their best on large screen hidef tv's.
Yeah, and hidef games just don't that good on old school low res tvs. I can't afford a hidef tv, and I like the fact that there will a new console that isn't insanely expensive because of graphical enhancements that won't show up on my tv.
You want a hidef game console, then PS3 and 360 are for you. But I'm happy that I won't have to spend on on a console just to make you (and everyone else with hidef) happy.
>>'m not saying you're not right, but from that description it sounds exactly like both Ubuntu's "light-weight" synaptic (I don't know what they call it, apart from "Add or remove software") and FC's Pirut. Is there any significant difference?
I don't remember seeing an icon on my desktop for synaptic when I first installed Ubuntu. Also, Ubuntu's synaptic and apt-get don't always put shortcuts to the program in the applications menu, which was really frustrating to me until I figured out where it was installing things.
I think the biggest benefit of Click-and-Run is that it makes installing programs easy for Windows users trying to figure out linux. On Windows, "Add and Remove Programs" isn't very useful for adding programs; Windows users are used to going to the web and finding the programs they want to install. While the programs in synaptic are technically on the web, they're not in a browser and that's not intuitive for Windows users. Click and Run makes it intuitive for them.
>>In OS X all you have to do is drag it to your Applications Folder (or another folder). Would that be very hard to implement in Linux?
That's basically what I did to install Firefox 1.5 in Ubuntu. Since Mac is also, a *nix, it isn't that hard to make Linux do what Mac does. I however, prefer apt-get, though for newbies the Mac way would be easier.
>>Few will say they're overextending their rights. Many will say they're taking unfair advantage of clueless users.
Well, if they won't being taken advantage of by Linspire, then they'ld be taken advantage of by Microsoft for a lot more money.
Well, I'm not going to nitpick with you over your opinions on firefox (though it's much better than you seem to think) but your idea that MS could possibly even be happy that firefox exists, let alone be behind some kind of conspiracy to make it, is completely not fucking based in reality. Firefox has almost double the marketshare of all other non-IE browsers combined . Firefox has more marketshare than Mozilla ever did, and IE now has less marketshare than it's had in a longtime. Hate the interface if you want, but you got to respect firefox for being the first f/oss browser to finally give IE some sort of competition.
Why not just merge KDE and Gnome ?
I understand that my statement looks like a troll's dream but it would not be such a bad situation.
After all, Firefox is now the main F/OSS web browser with a large dominance among the F/OSS community. And it's not that bad. Why would it be so bad with desktop managers ?
Please enlighten me. Thank you.
Before there was Firefox, do you think that Opera and Mozilla should have merged? Would that have been a better solution than making Firefox?
Firefox has gained dominance because it has earned it. If a desktop manager gains dominance, it will (hopefully) have earned it too, but you can't just force something into dominance. KDE and Gnome users like different things. Maybe another desktop manager can take the best of both, or come up with new ways that are better, and convince most users to switch, but that won't happen by forcing two entrenched products to merge.
Now only if Linux guys could get installation of package software through an Installshield type of setup going.
Now see, what really made me fall for Ubuntu is apt-get. It makes installation so much eaiser. I just just type "apt-get install *program*" and then it's there. No hunting down my application and manualling downloading it and then clicking it and then clicking next 80 times and going through stupid options when I could be doing something else. Maybe installing deb and rpms are hard, but I wouldn't know, since everything I've ever wanted to download I've found in apt-get or synaptic. I'ld really hate it if linux started to go in the direction of windows-like installations.
I'm pretty sure they didn't scale up Lavos. My second time beating him was kinda hard, since I only had Marle and Chrono, but all the rest were really easy.
Yet players feel betrayed. They say, 'I want to press buttons.' They say, 'I don't want to watch my videogame.'
I thought everyone who felt that way stopped playing FF years ago?
>>Because if an official patch breaks your OS, you can get help for it from Microsoft.
Yeah. I called microsoft tech support after Windows decided not to boot after I upgraded IE, and they told me I could pay them $200 for help. I'm thinking that relying on MS to help you if somehting breaks is a bad plan.
So you tell us that you never use pivot tables in Excel. You never use the rules wizard in Outlook. You are not a power user. You are not responsible for IT purchases where I work. I'm truly thankfull for that!
I use excel every day and I don't even know what the fuck pivot tables are. As for the rules wizard, not that we're talking about Thunderbird, but it's message filters do the same thing and you only have to go through one page of options to set one up, not 8.
Anyways, if MS Office 97 works good for some people, what do you care? Why should companies pay $1,000s of dollars for some extra features that most of their employees don't even understand? Of course, I would suggest they go with modern open source programs instead, but it's their decision and if it works for them, good for them.
Last year when I needed by buy MS office for myself, I found that there was a less expensive, legal way...
Yes. It's called OpenOffice. Or KOffice. Or AbiWord, if you just need word processing.
Maybe MSOffice has some cool features, but are those extra features really worth $125?
Are there really more MEPIS users than Debian users?
I wouldn't be surprised if there are. The popularity of the new, easy-to-use distros has really exploded recently (well, in comparison with linux desktop popularity usually). Mepis is riding the same wave that Ubuntu is, also being an easy-to-use Debian-based Linux.
You should backup everything you want to keep everytime you do something major to your computer (such as upgrading your OS). Actually, you should backup your stuff on a regular basis anyways.
I'm not 100% sure about Fedora, but I know other distros support upgrading while keeping all your programs and settings, so I'm pretty sure Fedora does too. The backup is just a recommendation in case something goes wrong.
>>Why can't the same disability legisation force commercial vendors to adopt the ODF as a supported format?
Why would they do that?
Seriously, why? What does ODF do for people with disabilities?
Sure, it offers the potential, through standardization and openness, to make screenreaders for documents easy to code. Open source could potentially make computing so much easier for people with disabilities. But open source hasn't done anything for people with disabilities yet. They have screenreaders that work with MS Word on Windows. They don't have screenreaders for OpenOffice on Linux. All the potential in the world doesn't change reality today, and the reality is that it's so much easier for people with disabilities to use Windows (and Mac) than it is for them to use Linux, and until that changes they will never support Linux and open source, they will support what supports them.
>>I don't find Ubuntu all that revolutionary in user friendlyness.
I don't know what it is about Ubuntu. If you compare it spec-by-spec to any other user-friendly distro, it doesn't come out ahead. In fact, it could even come out pretty low, considering it's lack of mp3/dvd support, no automounting of windows partitions, and the sound problems that are still pretty prevelant as far as I know. I'm sure you could find more. But for some reason, Ubuntu just clicks with many Linux newbies.
When I was a linux newb (I guess some would say I'm still a newb, but whatever) I tried several distros out, and I even took a basic Red Hat class. Despite my efforts (which, to be fair, weren't exactly my best) I never got comfortable enough on a linux system to use it for any of my day-to-day activities. When I tried Mandrake, I screwed it up trying to install Firefox, and never touched it again. My attempts at other distros didn't go any better, so when my classmates started hyping up Ubuntu, I was skeptical. But I installed in on my spare partition, and booted it up. I expected to only use it for a little, get confused, and reboot to Windows. So I boot it up, clicked on firefox, and set out to do some web surfing. I discovered this Ubuntu faq and I learn about apt-get and absolutely fall in love with it. Instead of spending the few minutes I expected to with Unbutu, I spent days. And when I went back to windows, I exported my firefox bookmarks and stuff, and went right back to ubuntu.
The difference in usability between Ubuntu and other "newbie-friendly" distros like Mandrake for me then was like night and day. Mandrake I couldn't do anything. Ubuntu I could quit windows cold-turkey for, without knowing anything about it beforehand. Now that I know more about linux, it doesn't make sense. There's just something about Ubuntu that just really gets newbs into it, whether that's logical or not.
I use Windows at work and Gnome at home and I never even noticed the different button orders. I really don't think it's that big of a deal.
>>Just because they got an A in computer security, doesn't mean the agency isn't a total failure in its actual mission.
I think grandparent post was just saying "Yay Linux!", not "Yay evironmentalism!".
>>Yeah, and how many propenents of video games don't have kids? Exactly.
Uh, all the ones I know. What is your point?
>>I know plenty of gamers who think GTA goes way over the top for something targeted at kids
GTA is not marketed at kids. Anyone who thinks that is a moron.
>>You'll have to pardon me if I hold in low regard a distro in which you can be locked out of your system merely for following the install instructions as written.
I've seen Windows systems refuse to boot after install. It's called bad luck. It's fixed by sticking the install disk back in and clicking "rescue" or "repair". Also, if you're mad at Ubuntu for accidently locking you out of your existing OS, remember that Windows does that by design.
>>They should have taken the SuSE propduct they were selling and offered a "home edition" for 100% free to home users and non-profit companies.
It's called openSUSE