It's a problem of the Windows platform. Whose fault it is is irrelevant, and of course MS doesn't care.
Wow. That's some logic you have there. Let me give you a hint: they don't control the 3rd party vendors that build software for their platform. Those vendors, just like you or MS, can choose to license their software anyway they want. Of course its not like there is any open source software for Windows is there?
It's the problem of users and developers.
Users don't care, nor could they do anything, with the source or API. So its not a problem for them. Developers may or may not care, but given the number of developers building software for Windows, I'd wage a non-trival amount of developers don't care either. Indeed, I don't care what most of the APIs or source are for the OS on which I'm building.
And in remaining cases it's essential.
Really? Who's employeed in a job where its ESSENTIAL they have that access? Well, there are MS employees, but that's a rather duh answer. Funny, I don't see anyone sitting there about to lose their job because they can't get to the info they need.
If you need to replace the stack, it means the original wasn't good enough for your job. Replacing is likely overwriting some DLLs, easy. Now for -writing- these DLLs (from scratch)...
If its not doing what you need, its unlikely that a few small code tweaks would fix you problem either. Couldn't you just take some open source Linux stuff and use that as a base as well? In most cases you wouldn't be starting 'completely from sractch' unless you wanted. Believe it or not you can control the network stack on windows to tweak it. It may not be immediately obvious, but I believe it mostly involves some registry changes.
We're not talking about faults/guilty but about problems. Not all evils of this world are made in Richmond.
Who's in Richmond? Your talking about niche problems, and from your previous posts it very much seems like you're blaming MS.
In Windows you have a binary driver.
There's actually very few APIs which are undocumented, or for which you cannot find the documentation. After all, SOMEBODY made that driver, and they didn't do it by guessing.
The problem is writing the actual content of this plugin, for example rewriting a major component of the system from scratch instead of changing a single ++ to -- in the code, because you can't change a part this small, a single function, you need to replace whole library.
You're making something up to support your case. I doubt there's a library out there when the ONLY change you need is to change a ++ to a --. Your argument here is weak.
Even though the actual system interaction part is adding a few header files in your Visual Studio project, then implementing 2-3 interfaces, the actual task of recreating the whole overriden component may be beyond your reach. You can't create such a plugin. You could modify the code if you had access to it.
If you can't build the entire piece you need on your own, I doubt you have the skill necessary to tweak the existing code without creating other side effects since you likely don't understand it as proven by the fact you couldn't recreate it on your own.
It's about as easy to solder in a matching socket into a circuit board and maybe add some glue logic, to make it plug into the other part, as to create a template document for a plugin module. Now what you place inside the plugin module or what is that circuit board composed of, is a different thing - not entirely related to what they plug into.
Soldering is already more difficult than typing on a keyboard. I don't know many electronics where you can just 'plug in' any old chip you want. Even with processors, they have to be a certain socket specification, and the different chips are much more similar than they are different.
To answer your question, this is pretty much what every other company does. When Acura put together my transmition, there was a flaw in it. I had to wait for them to acknowledge the problem (although I hadn't been affected by it yet). Then I had to take it to them, and wait for them to fix the problem they created. If they didn't, I'd have to sue them.
So my question to you is this: why should MS be any different than any other company that produces something?
It wouldn't be so bad if every nVidia based product I have ever tried to use hadn't been DOA.
You must have very bad luck. Or perhaps you're buying from ultra cheap board manufacturers? All the NVidia stuff I've had has worked great, with the exception of one card. It melted down trying to play Doom3, but I was able to get it replaced free of charge since it was new.
AMD needs GPU functionality on the CPU. I think everyone kinda expected that to happen at some point.
Er, I don't, for the same reason I don't buy MBs with integratd graphics; in 3 months, when the next twice as fast GPU comes out, I'd like the option of upgrading it. A processor seems to have a longer life than a graphics card.
Most Linux problems can be solved either by research, waiting, or writing code.
And therein lies the problem; I don't really want to do any of those. I have enough to keep me busy, learning new software development tools / methods, learning new languages, etc. But to do basic maintence on my system, no, I just want it to work, so I can do what I want with my computer.
Realistically I just want to make sure that the answer accompanies the problem just in case some google search thinks your post should be included in the results. I find it annoying when I see lots of forums with the problem I have but no responses.
Yes, and that was one of the frustrating things with Linux.. problems no one ever heard of or could reproduce. So your reason for posting certainly makes sense to me.
I've not totally given up Linux, I keep it around to play with, but I don't have a lot of time to play with it.
Once you're through the red tape on the subscription and considered worthy, you get access to scraps from the lord's table.
Red tape? Buy a subscription is trivially easy. You fill out the form, pay the fee and off you go. Its not like they turn anyone down (why would they?).
You have access only to what Microsoft gave you, none of the third party software.
I don't see how that's MS' fault or problem. The third party stuff can license their code however they want. MS doesn't force them to close it.
Still, you can't change the core of the system.
For most, this is largely irrelevent.
You can't do the advanced things with windows though - at best you can override, replace.
Um, you're complaining that you can't tweak their stuff, but you CAN replace components? Ok...
You can't modify the network stack, you can only turn it off and replace with your own.
I'd say that's pretty advanced. And if your stack fails, you have a known good one to fall back on, its not forever foobar.
You can't modify the drivers, you can only add a layer of indirection that does a conversion between the driver and kernel, modifying data to your needs, or write the drivers from scratch... reading Linux sources to learn the hardware API.
This is a fault of hardware manufactures; would you rather read the Linux source to see how a piece of hardware works, or would you rather the person that made the hardware document their own APIs? I'd rather the latter, personally.
Things you do with the system are intermediate (though still devishly difficult) - interaction, switching on, off, redirecting, overriding - then you bind these to really advanced stuff that exists outside of the system, as add-ons, workarounds, plugins and extensions. Not as actual system modifications.
Seems pretty advanced to me. If you can create a plugin that overrides the default behavior, do you really need to modify the code that shipped? I would say no. Its a support issue. Should MS have to take the time to verify that no, you didn't really change their code? No, its too much of a hassel.
Sure, you theoretically can do everything the above way. Just like you can get a C64 to run PC software. Simply replace enough hardware. But when does it become a PC case mod?
Very poor analogy; its much simplier to create a plugin software module that build a circuit board. Sorry, not buying it.
I was refering to the webpages that claim you must use internet explorer on windows before you can access the site. I have seen several sites that work as soon as your browser reports itself as being ie6 on xp.
That's certainly a valid complaint, and its something I don't think web sites should be doing.
Most mail clients in linux seem to support either the mbox or maildir standards, if you set it up properly you might be able to use three or four different mail clients and have them share the same mail.
I'm not aware of anyway to easily convert between the two though.
The thing that most people don't seem to realize is that I went back to Windows after a long series of frustrations, some of which I've mentioned, some of which I haven't. It wasn't one thing individually which is why its annoying that people say 'oh this app does just what you want' and trying to point out how to solve the one or two problems.
When people say they switched to linux because of X problems on Windows, they're never questioned.. but go the other way, and the only truth must be that you're a fanboy. Its really irritating.
My point is that Linux isn't ready for the lower to mid range of uses either.
Oh, and you're wrong; you CAN get driver development kits and debug drivers, MS has support for that. I have several tools here in my MSDN subscription. I believe these discs come even with the bottom line MSDN subscription.
Finally, please tell my employer, who is happily running custom software I wrote for him and his business that I have no skill. I'm sure he'd laugh at you.
I never said it didn't make great strides (my first try into linux was getting X to run with Vesa mode, since my PCI card wasn't supported at the time). All I'm saying is that I believe it has a long way to go.
But just check out the mods for the thread which I started... mine are getting modded flamebait troll or overrated, while all the pro linux "responses" are getting +5.
Eerily similar to me would be that we were in a CIVIL war and doing those things. You tell me to take note of the 'real' content but conviently leave out the first part of the sentence to prove your point.
You can say 'civil liberties would be surrendered under the guise of National security' and apply it to WW1 and WW2 as well. So no, its not 'eerily similar' because its nothing that hasn't happened previously. Now if we WERE in a civil war, I'd agree.
This is the third or fourth time you have mentioned frustration. You must be easily frustrated!
Not really, but when time and again, I need to research 'how to do x with Linux' its gets to be pretty old, especially after I'm home from work, and over the course of five years.
Yes, Red Hat is comparatively harder to use but it is a server distribution after all.
Really? It certainly didn't seem to start that way. FWIW, RH9 is the last HOME user release of RH, isn't it?
If you can't make Mandriva work then I would doubt your level of computer expertise (i.e., you are not the computer geek you make yourself out to be).
Well I guess if a computer geek must be glued to a computer 24/7 then yes, you're right, I'm not. I'm pretty piss poor at computers, even though I was helping program support for cardiology support into a health care product for a company now part of GE. But you're right, I'm not a geek. Ass.
I couldn't tell you about Outlook (I personally hate it even though I have to support the lusers at work who insist on using it), but doesn't Outlook let you access an email server through IMAP? Setting up your own mail server would allow you to access those old emails through multiple email clients. If you knew what you were doing you could even set up a webmail interface to that same mail server.
I do know what I'm doing, asshat, I just don't want to run a mail server simply to keep track of my email. What a good fucking solution. Is that what you told your family when they wanted to switch? 'Well, you can just setup a mail server.' Good god, I DO have a life outside of computers you know.
Now I agree with you that you don't exactly fit the classical definition of "M$ fanboi" but all the examples you have given about Linux not working for you are failures on your part, as millions of people (including me) are able to get Linux working well with minimal problems.
I'm so sorry, you are right of course. There are no bugs in any open source application. It takes no time or effort at all to use Linux. There are never any weird dependancy problems.
The reason people are calling you a "M$ fanboi" is because you choose to criticize Linux rather than learn how to use it correctly. You choose to take the easy way out and praise Windows rather than learn how to use Linux right. Like they say, if it quacks like a duck...
Hmm, of course you're right. I just want to use my computer, I really don't feel like doing hours and hours of research to learn it. I just want it to work with minimal effort. I do have other things to do you know. You may not, and that's fine, but don't blast people because they just want to get things done. I want to use my computer for a variety of tasks, programming included. I have an interest in programming not systems administration.
If you're saying an MS fanboy is anyone that doesn't want to spend the required time to learn Linux and just USE their computer, well, then that makes most of the world MS fanboys I guess. But you're right, spending five YEARS wasn't enough time after all.
That is the problem with many people today, they want to "use" their computer and not learn about how they work.
Why is that a problem? Do you know every detail of how every device you use works? I doubt it. Sorry, but you should be able to choose how much you want to get into something. If you just want to email, or (like me) program, you should be able to do so with various levels of learning. I want to program, not try and figure out why the sound daemon on KDE crashed again..
People who enjoy learning about computers spend all day working with them then go home and spend all night messing with them.
I don't spend all nighit messing with them. You fail to see the distinction though; I don't mind going home and toying with a new programming idea I have, or building a small little app to do something I want. What I DON'T want to do is
I wouldn't claim NE is any bastion of freedom. Remember the story about the NH police a few weeks ago?
I live in Vermont, and its amazing how intrustive some of the laws are (or, perhaps, I never heard of these things before, because I'm a first time homeowner).
But for something as simple as replacing my collapsing fence, I need a permit from the city, which gives my neighbors the RIGHT to stop me from doing so. Totally absurd.
At any rate, the national level has much more sway than the state level.
Oh, you mean the nitch things that even few computer professionals have a desire to do. Got ya.
I'll continue to USE my computer, you go right ahead fixing everyone else's buggy device drivers / software. I have no desire to do any of those things, nor do most computer users.
Care to explain to me why some applications on that list failed to work for me, although they claimed they were supported?
In case you're not aware, I'm speaking from my own experience of running Linux on the desktop for about five years. That's not an insignficate amount of time, and I didn't just hit a wall and give up, I actually did try to solve my problems; sometimes I could, sometimes I couldn't.
The reason I switched back was because I was absolutely TIRED of trying to figure out how to do X on linux, whenever a new X came up.
But whatever, I'm saying Linux isn't ready for the desktop, so obvisouly I never used it and have not clue what i'm talking about.
My frustration is what lead me back to Windows. I wanted things to 'just work.' And for me, they do. I was using RH up until 9, when I switched to Mandriva.
I liked KMail, but it was frightenting to find that one day my emails disappeared. After finding the cause, it wasn't frightening, but annoying. For a normal user, that wouldnt exactly inspire confidence. I kept plugging along though. Switching email clients is fine, but the task becomes harder when you want to actually keep all your previous emails (i'm over 4400 in my inbox now). It was enough of a pain to get it into Outlook (because of KMail), I don't think I wanted to try going to some other mail client. Pine is ok, fine if you're in an SSH session, but for most of my computer work, I really prefer NOT to be in a CLI. One of the frustating things about Linux was that I did need to drop to command line far more often than i wanted.
I'd rather use my computer, than try out the 100+ Linux distributions to find the one that fits me exactly well. I have other things I'd rather be doing personally. Reinstalling yet another OS isn't one of them..
I don't follow your last statement; who is actively breaking anything not MS? Do you mean bashing? I don't dig on Linux on the desktop because its not MS, I dig on it because it was more frustrating in my five years of running it on the desktop than Windows was.
That's fine if you're only doing web browsing and email, and that's all they'll ever want to do. (I never tried Thunderbird, but I fail to see what that has to do with my comment about KMail).
OOo is fine too, if you never need to send the files to anyone else.
And if those two cases are all you're using your computer for than Linux may be fine. The problem is that I think the average user does a bit more, like video editing (my uncle, a computer novice does this).
Don't know. The only person I know of is my grandfather, and he was often first in line for the next version of DOS, and Windows when it came out. I had a hard time keeping up with him. He may be a bit above average user, but he wasn't a computer professional either, he was an accountant.
No, I'm not forgetting about Wine, I'm remembering the amount of sheer frustration that it caused me. Wine is not reliable. For very simple apps yes, but for the newest version of Money or Quicken or game, its not. Even people with similar setups have problems or don't have problems. Some programs I could get to work, which others could not. Some programs I could not get to work, and others could.
For people to move to Linux, you need to win over alot of developers too..Net is actually a great platform with which to develop. I'm sure Java is too (I liked Java which I took my course on it), but for whatever reason its not being picked up as a platform on which to develop desktop applications.
Your wife uses it because you are there to help her. Throw it at your grandfather and see how many calls you get. Especially when KMail makes your emails disappear because it fucking up the index file, yet again.
I fail to see how you're unable to install windows; it barely asks you any questions at all. I've only had it fail on faulty hardware.
Don't worry about my karma, its been excellent since/. switched to displaying only the text.
Oh, and to stop the accusations that I'm an MS fanboy before start:
I setup a Linux server in my home in 98 and ran it through various versions of RH until earlier this year. In 2001 I finally 'took the plunge' and moved to a Linux desktop. I converted that back to Windows earlier this year also. So lets get that straight right now, so I don't have to read all those stupid accusations (which mysteriously stop after I post that info).
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It's a problem of the Windows platform. Whose fault it is is irrelevant, and of course MS doesn't care.
Wow. That's some logic you have there. Let me give you a hint: they don't control the 3rd party vendors that build software for their platform. Those vendors, just like you or MS, can choose to license their software anyway they want. Of course its not like there is any open source software for Windows is there?
It's the problem of users and developers.
Users don't care, nor could they do anything, with the source or API. So its not a problem for them. Developers may or may not care, but given the number of developers building software for Windows, I'd wage a non-trival amount of developers don't care either. Indeed, I don't care what most of the APIs or source are for the OS on which I'm building.
And in remaining cases it's essential.
Really? Who's employeed in a job where its ESSENTIAL they have that access? Well, there are MS employees, but that's a rather duh answer. Funny, I don't see anyone sitting there about to lose their job because they can't get to the info they need.
If you need to replace the stack, it means the original wasn't good enough for your job. Replacing is likely overwriting some DLLs, easy. Now for -writing- these DLLs (from scratch)...
If its not doing what you need, its unlikely that a few small code tweaks would fix you problem either. Couldn't you just take some open source Linux stuff and use that as a base as well? In most cases you wouldn't be starting 'completely from sractch' unless you wanted. Believe it or not you can control the network stack on windows to tweak it. It may not be immediately obvious, but I believe it mostly involves some registry changes.
We're not talking about faults/guilty but about problems. Not all evils of this world are made in Richmond.
Who's in Richmond? Your talking about niche problems, and from your previous posts it very much seems like you're blaming MS.
In Windows you have a binary driver.
There's actually very few APIs which are undocumented, or for which you cannot find the documentation. After all, SOMEBODY made that driver, and they didn't do it by guessing.
The problem is writing the actual content of this plugin, for example rewriting a major component of the system from scratch instead of changing a single ++ to -- in the code, because you can't change a part this small, a single function, you need to replace whole library.
You're making something up to support your case. I doubt there's a library out there when the ONLY change you need is to change a ++ to a --. Your argument here is weak.
Even though the actual system interaction part is adding a few header files in your Visual Studio project, then implementing 2-3 interfaces, the actual task of recreating the whole overriden component may be beyond your reach. You can't create such a plugin. You could modify the code if you had access to it.
If you can't build the entire piece you need on your own, I doubt you have the skill necessary to tweak the existing code without creating other side effects since you likely don't understand it as proven by the fact you couldn't recreate it on your own.
It's about as easy to solder in a matching socket into a circuit board and maybe add some glue logic, to make it plug into the other part, as to create a template document for a plugin module. Now what you place inside the plugin module or what is that circuit board composed of, is a different thing - not entirely related to what they plug into.
Soldering is already more difficult than typing on a keyboard. I don't know many electronics where you can just 'plug in' any old chip you want. Even with processors, they have to be a certain socket specification, and the different chips are much more similar than they are different.
Very good, I see you can write English now.
To answer your question, this is pretty much what every other company does. When Acura put together my transmition, there was a flaw in it. I had to wait for them to acknowledge the problem (although I hadn't been affected by it yet). Then I had to take it to them, and wait for them to fix the problem they created. If they didn't, I'd have to sue them.
So my question to you is this: why should MS be any different than any other company that produces something?
It wouldn't be so bad if every nVidia based product I have ever tried to use hadn't been DOA.
You must have very bad luck. Or perhaps you're buying from ultra cheap board manufacturers? All the NVidia stuff I've had has worked great, with the exception of one card. It melted down trying to play Doom3, but I was able to get it replaced free of charge since it was new.
AMD needs GPU functionality on the CPU. I think everyone kinda expected that to happen at some point.
Er, I don't, for the same reason I don't buy MBs with integratd graphics; in 3 months, when the next twice as fast GPU comes out, I'd like the option of upgrading it. A processor seems to have a longer life than a graphics card.
If AMD really 'owns' ATI, I would think they could simply dictate that.
Most Linux problems can be solved either by research, waiting, or writing code.
And therein lies the problem; I don't really want to do any of those. I have enough to keep me busy, learning new software development tools / methods, learning new languages, etc. But to do basic maintence on my system, no, I just want it to work, so I can do what I want with my computer.
Realistically I just want to make sure that the answer accompanies the problem just in case some google search thinks your post should be included in the results. I find it annoying when I see lots of forums with the problem I have but no responses.
Yes, and that was one of the frustrating things with Linux.. problems no one ever heard of or could reproduce. So your reason for posting certainly makes sense to me.
I've not totally given up Linux, I keep it around to play with, but I don't have a lot of time to play with it.
Once you're through the red tape on the subscription and considered worthy, you get access to scraps from the lord's table.
Red tape? Buy a subscription is trivially easy. You fill out the form, pay the fee and off you go. Its not like they turn anyone down (why would they?).
You have access only to what Microsoft gave you, none of the third party software.
I don't see how that's MS' fault or problem. The third party stuff can license their code however they want. MS doesn't force them to close it.
Still, you can't change the core of the system.
For most, this is largely irrelevent.
You can't do the advanced things with windows though - at best you can override, replace.
Um, you're complaining that you can't tweak their stuff, but you CAN replace components? Ok...
You can't modify the network stack, you can only turn it off and replace with your own.
I'd say that's pretty advanced. And if your stack fails, you have a known good one to fall back on, its not forever foobar.
You can't modify the drivers, you can only add a layer of indirection that does a conversion between the driver and kernel, modifying data to your needs, or write the drivers from scratch... reading Linux sources to learn the hardware API.
This is a fault of hardware manufactures; would you rather read the Linux source to see how a piece of hardware works, or would you rather the person that made the hardware document their own APIs? I'd rather the latter, personally.
Things you do with the system are intermediate (though still devishly difficult) - interaction, switching on, off, redirecting, overriding - then you bind these to really advanced stuff that exists outside of the system, as add-ons, workarounds, plugins and extensions. Not as actual system modifications.
Seems pretty advanced to me. If you can create a plugin that overrides the default behavior, do you really need to modify the code that shipped? I would say no. Its a support issue. Should MS have to take the time to verify that no, you didn't really change their code? No, its too much of a hassel.
Sure, you theoretically can do everything the above way. Just like you can get a C64 to run PC software. Simply replace enough hardware. But when does it become a PC case mod?
Very poor analogy; its much simplier to create a plugin software module that build a circuit board. Sorry, not buying it.
I was refering to the webpages that claim you must use internet explorer on windows before you can access the site. I have seen several sites that work as soon as your browser reports itself as being ie6 on xp.
That's certainly a valid complaint, and its something I don't think web sites should be doing.
Most mail clients in linux seem to support either the mbox or maildir standards, if you set it up properly you might be able to use three or four different mail clients and have them share the same mail.
I'm not aware of anyway to easily convert between the two though.
The thing that most people don't seem to realize is that I went back to Windows after a long series of frustrations, some of which I've mentioned, some of which I haven't. It wasn't one thing individually which is why its annoying that people say 'oh this app does just what you want' and trying to point out how to solve the one or two problems.
When people say they switched to linux because of X problems on Windows, they're never questioned.. but go the other way, and the only truth must be that you're a fanboy. Its really irritating.
My point is that Linux isn't ready for the lower to mid range of uses either.
Oh, and you're wrong; you CAN get driver development kits and debug drivers, MS has support for that. I have several tools here in my MSDN subscription. I believe these discs come even with the bottom line MSDN subscription.
Finally, please tell my employer, who is happily running custom software I wrote for him and his business that I have no skill. I'm sure he'd laugh at you.
Recently? As in Dec 2005?
I never said it didn't make great strides (my first try into linux was getting X to run with Vesa mode, since my PCI card wasn't supported at the time). All I'm saying is that I believe it has a long way to go.
But just check out the mods for the thread which I started... mine are getting modded flamebait troll or overrated, while all the pro linux "responses" are getting +5.
Eerily similar to me would be that we were in a CIVIL war and doing those things. You tell me to take note of the 'real' content but conviently leave out the first part of the sentence to prove your point.
You can say 'civil liberties would be surrendered under the guise of National security' and apply it to WW1 and WW2 as well. So no, its not 'eerily similar' because its nothing that hasn't happened previously. Now if we WERE in a civil war, I'd agree.
I will, and I'll look it up in Jewish versions as well.
The modding of this comment is further proof..
This is the third or fourth time you have mentioned frustration. You must be easily frustrated!
Not really, but when time and again, I need to research 'how to do x with Linux' its gets to be pretty old, especially after I'm home from work, and over the course of five years.
Yes, Red Hat is comparatively harder to use but it is a server distribution after all.
Really? It certainly didn't seem to start that way. FWIW, RH9 is the last HOME user release of RH, isn't it?
If you can't make Mandriva work then I would doubt your level of computer expertise (i.e., you are not the computer geek you make yourself out to be).
Well I guess if a computer geek must be glued to a computer 24/7 then yes, you're right, I'm not. I'm pretty piss poor at computers, even though I was helping program support for cardiology support into a health care product for a company now part of GE. But you're right, I'm not a geek. Ass.
I couldn't tell you about Outlook (I personally hate it even though I have to support the lusers at work who insist on using it), but doesn't Outlook let you access an email server through IMAP? Setting up your own mail server would allow you to access those old emails through multiple email clients. If you knew what you were doing you could even set up a webmail interface to that same mail server.
I do know what I'm doing, asshat, I just don't want to run a mail server simply to keep track of my email. What a good fucking solution. Is that what you told your family when they wanted to switch? 'Well, you can just setup a mail server.' Good god, I DO have a life outside of computers you know.
Now I agree with you that you don't exactly fit the classical definition of "M$ fanboi" but all the examples you have given about Linux not working for you are failures on your part, as millions of people (including me) are able to get Linux working well with minimal problems.
I'm so sorry, you are right of course. There are no bugs in any open source application. It takes no time or effort at all to use Linux. There are never any weird dependancy problems.
The reason people are calling you a "M$ fanboi" is because you choose to criticize Linux rather than learn how to use it correctly. You choose to take the easy way out and praise Windows rather than learn how to use Linux right. Like they say, if it quacks like a duck...
Hmm, of course you're right. I just want to use my computer, I really don't feel like doing hours and hours of research to learn it. I just want it to work with minimal effort. I do have other things to do you know. You may not, and that's fine, but don't blast people because they just want to get things done. I want to use my computer for a variety of tasks, programming included. I have an interest in programming not systems administration.
If you're saying an MS fanboy is anyone that doesn't want to spend the required time to learn Linux and just USE their computer, well, then that makes most of the world MS fanboys I guess. But you're right, spending five YEARS wasn't enough time after all.
That is the problem with many people today, they want to "use" their computer and not learn about how they work.
Why is that a problem? Do you know every detail of how every device you use works? I doubt it. Sorry, but you should be able to choose how much you want to get into something. If you just want to email, or (like me) program, you should be able to do so with various levels of learning. I want to program, not try and figure out why the sound daemon on KDE crashed again..
People who enjoy learning about computers spend all day working with them then go home and spend all night messing with them.
I don't spend all nighit messing with them. You fail to see the distinction though; I don't mind going home and toying with a new programming idea I have, or building a small little app to do something I want. What I DON'T want to do is
I wouldn't claim NE is any bastion of freedom. Remember the story about the NH police a few weeks ago?
I live in Vermont, and its amazing how intrustive some of the laws are (or, perhaps, I never heard of these things before, because I'm a first time homeowner).
But for something as simple as replacing my collapsing fence, I need a permit from the city, which gives my neighbors the RIGHT to stop me from doing so. Totally absurd.
At any rate, the national level has much more sway than the state level.
Oh, you mean the nitch things that even few computer professionals have a desire to do. Got ya.
I'll continue to USE my computer, you go right ahead fixing everyone else's buggy device drivers / software. I have no desire to do any of those things, nor do most computer users.
Care to explain to me why some applications on that list failed to work for me, although they claimed they were supported?
In case you're not aware, I'm speaking from my own experience of running Linux on the desktop for about five years. That's not an insignficate amount of time, and I didn't just hit a wall and give up, I actually did try to solve my problems; sometimes I could, sometimes I couldn't.
The reason I switched back was because I was absolutely TIRED of trying to figure out how to do X on linux, whenever a new X came up.
But whatever, I'm saying Linux isn't ready for the desktop, so obvisouly I never used it and have not clue what i'm talking about.
My frustration is what lead me back to Windows. I wanted things to 'just work.' And for me, they do. I was using RH up until 9, when I switched to Mandriva.
I liked KMail, but it was frightenting to find that one day my emails disappeared. After finding the cause, it wasn't frightening, but annoying. For a normal user, that wouldnt exactly inspire confidence. I kept plugging along though. Switching email clients is fine, but the task becomes harder when you want to actually keep all your previous emails (i'm over 4400 in my inbox now). It was enough of a pain to get it into Outlook (because of KMail), I don't think I wanted to try going to some other mail client. Pine is ok, fine if you're in an SSH session, but for most of my computer work, I really prefer NOT to be in a CLI. One of the frustating things about Linux was that I did need to drop to command line far more often than i wanted.
I'd rather use my computer, than try out the 100+ Linux distributions to find the one that fits me exactly well. I have other things I'd rather be doing personally. Reinstalling yet another OS isn't one of them..
I don't follow your last statement; who is actively breaking anything not MS? Do you mean bashing? I don't dig on Linux on the desktop because its not MS, I dig on it because it was more frustrating in my five years of running it on the desktop than Windows was.
That's fine if you're only doing web browsing and email, and that's all they'll ever want to do. (I never tried Thunderbird, but I fail to see what that has to do with my comment about KMail).
OOo is fine too, if you never need to send the files to anyone else.
And if those two cases are all you're using your computer for than Linux may be fine. The problem is that I think the average user does a bit more, like video editing (my uncle, a computer novice does this).
Sorry, could you post again in English, I really don't understand what you're getting at.
Gotta love the mods.
The newest trick for anything that doesn't praise Linux is Overrated. The stealth way to silence anyone that doesn't agree with you.
What exactly do you consider 'advanced' items that you simply cannot do on Windows?
Don't know. The only person I know of is my grandfather, and he was often first in line for the next version of DOS, and Windows when it came out. I had a hard time keeping up with him. He may be a bit above average user, but he wasn't a computer professional either, he was an accountant.
No, I'm not forgetting about Wine, I'm remembering the amount of sheer frustration that it caused me. Wine is not reliable. For very simple apps yes, but for the newest version of Money or Quicken or game, its not. Even people with similar setups have problems or don't have problems. Some programs I could get to work, which others could not. Some programs I could not get to work, and others could.
.Net is actually a great platform with which to develop. I'm sure Java is too (I liked Java which I took my course on it), but for whatever reason its not being picked up as a platform on which to develop desktop applications.
For people to move to Linux, you need to win over alot of developers too.
Your wife uses it because you are there to help her. Throw it at your grandfather and see how many calls you get. Especially when KMail makes your emails disappear because it fucking up the index file, yet again.
/. switched to displaying only the text.
I fail to see how you're unable to install windows; it barely asks you any questions at all. I've only had it fail on faulty hardware.
Don't worry about my karma, its been excellent since
Oh, and to stop the accusations that I'm an MS fanboy before start:
I setup a Linux server in my home in 98 and ran it through various versions of RH until earlier this year.
In 2001 I finally 'took the plunge' and moved to a Linux desktop. I converted that back to Windows earlier this year also. So lets get that straight right now, so I don't have to read all those stupid accusations (which mysteriously stop after I post that info).