The computer's operator, however, does not wish to take the time to learn the inner workings of Linux
To be honest, I don't really know the inner working of Kernel that much, or how many of the everyday applications I use exactly work internally.
he (I) can do simple things like install a new piece of hardware.
In most cases, I've found just plugging in the hardware is all I needed todo (touchpads, scanners, webcams etc.). The only thing I've found that did not auto configure itself, was the printers (which was very easy since all I had todo was open http://127.0.0.1:631/ in a webbrowser, and use the wizards from there).
The only thing in particular that I have ever had hardware problems with under Linux, was support of RAID controllers (they either worked or they didn't) -- But that is not off-the-shelf hardware at all. Even getting that working under windows, you need to hit some special key while windows setup is starting, provide the drivers on the disk (you would need a diskdrive) and so on.
Make Linux as simple to use as Windows -- in all respects -- and you'll have my ear.
In my opinion (as someone who uses Windows on daily tasks also), it is easier than Windows. As another post indicated, there is such a thing as a package manager. You would be amazed how many packages are in there. The only times I have ever needed to install something outside of it, was relatively easy too. Downloading installers off a website that usually come in a format your package manager recognizes or a compressed archive that has a graphical installer inside.
I don't want or need to know how an OS works.
This is pretty much why I started using Linux in the first place. I got so fedup of tweaking Windows XP, using a bunch of registry hacks, investigating why the file -> open/save dialogs were taking so long to open up. Investigating why opening network shares would cause explorer to freeze up (to the point where I started avoiding using it, because I couldn't stand waiting minutes for it to unfreeze).
An OS should be seamless, simply a conduit for running software and using hardware.
Agreed.
If I had to recommend a distribution of Linux to try, I'd mention Kubuntu Linux or Mandriva Linux currently.
Yeah, whatever. I think maybe I'll just wait a while -- maybe a year or a decade -- until it has a normal OSX interface and it's actually available and (one hopes) working.
Yeah, just what we need. Developers wasting time on rewriting the entire interface for Aqua's proprietary widget system that isn't used anywhere else -- which, knowing Apple, they're probably going to dump at some point entirely.
While the current interface is supported just fine on Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X and so on... Of course with MacOSX, it has to be a completely rewritten interface, for a niche set of users that do nothing but complain constantly when there isn't a Mac port.
Then complain that the application is crap because it doesn't feel like Aqua (because Apple didn't make decent portable widget libraries for GTK and so on -- I don't even want to get into the broken stuff they did with awt and swt in Java -- requiring you to EXTEND the interface for it to work properly which breaks the binary support for other platforms).
I remember when they used to flood Skype's plugin reviews with that crap...
It got into the hundreds often, and people were telling them to shut the hell up. Although now Skype whiped all the old reviews, and created a 'comments' section for plugins. While not in the hundreds, you still get the same crap every now and then.
I like the ones that complain about lack of macro support (claiming there is none at all), when the majority of used functions have already been implemented allowing most macros to run just fine.
Yeah - I believe it actually implements something over 30% of CSS 2 now!
Too bad that never determined if bank sites, billing sites and so on worked with the browser (in my experience, never really worked in Konqueror or Opera -- even when changing the browser agent).
Actually, they're supporting Win2k, where Microsoft is not with their new applications. Then again, I've actually ran Wine on one system to avoid the need to upgrade Win2k.
But then it's the same with other "heavyweights" like KDE, so I guess there's a trend there.
I have a old Pentium 3 system running KDE 3.5.5 quite well (Krita isn't that usable on it though). I recall running windows 98 on Pentium 3s (ran Windows 95 on a 486, but that's another story.).
As for older OS X releases, is there a problem with upgrading the OS? -- Apparently the new versions of the OS are faster than the old on the same hardware (I keep hearing this from certain people on Slashdot).
Maybe not, but it sounds like it will render obsolete most computers developed before the past 5 years. Nothing before Windows 2000 is compatible with the new version of Gecko? It sounds like something is wrong with that.
There is a webbrowser known as K-meleon which has been designed to be used on much older computers (no XUL), which uses a modern Gecko engine.
Oh just a note, I enabled KDE's top menu bar function (Mac OS X look-alike).. And the GTK applications (which are using the QT wrapper engine) are displaying their menus just fine from the top bar.
It's like running GNOME apps in a KDE session, or vice versa, but even worse.
I do run things like Firefox, GAIM and The GIMP in KDE. However, thanks to things like the GTK-QT wrapper engine (which comes by default in KDE based distros), they just don't look out of the place in the desktop, they take whatever styles you're using in KDE.
I do think Apple should write their own widget wrappers, without requiring aqua-extensions to get things working and without requiring huge clunks of additional code to the UI code which is only usable on Mac OS X.
Nothing wrong with age. Although Apple doesn't like supporting old things I noticed
and broken
Huh? How?
and you find it ridiculous that people don't want to use it?
What's wrong with it?
It's jarring to be using a Mac and suddenly come across an application with its menu bar grafted onto the top of its window instead of sitting at the top like every other application on the system and no drag-and-drop or support for other system services.
That's not X's fault. X doesn't dictate any UI standards, widgets and so on. It's meant to be a higher layer than that. You might want to blame the developers for not chosing other methods of porting said application or even Apple for not making widget libraries completely cross-platform compliant with each other (Like with the stupid awt-aqua extensions, gtk-aqua extensions in order to get the UI to work properly on MacOSX).
I think it's a little ridiculous to be surprised that people would want to avoid this inconsistency, especially with such a revered system as OS X.
Microsoft can still sue customers anyway over patents. There is a termination clause in the agreement that I don't see Microsoft having a problem using.
Novell has offered indemity for Linux since 2004.
And you're claiming that Novell won't if Microsoft starts suing people. I'm sorry, but the future isn't that black and white as you seem to see it.
They'd better edit them out in Wisconsin. The laws about using a person's image for profit are VERY specific in that state and the law there would probably be overriding.
But if they're sticking it on a free service, then they're not using a person's image for profit.
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing in particular that I have ever had hardware problems with under Linux, was support of RAID controllers (they either worked or they didn't) -- But that is not off-the-shelf hardware at all. Even getting that working under windows, you need to hit some special key while windows setup is starting, provide the drivers on the disk (you would need a diskdrive) and so on.In my opinion (as someone who uses Windows on daily tasks also), it is easier than Windows. As another post indicated, there is such a thing as a package manager. You would be amazed how many packages are in there. The only times I have ever needed to install something outside of it, was relatively easy too. Downloading installers off a website that usually come in a format your package manager recognizes or a compressed archive that has a graphical installer inside.This is pretty much why I started using Linux in the first place. I got so fedup of tweaking Windows XP, using a bunch of registry hacks, investigating why the file -> open/save dialogs were taking so long to open up. Investigating why opening network shares would cause explorer to freeze up (to the point where I started avoiding using it, because I couldn't stand waiting minutes for it to unfreeze).Agreed.
If I had to recommend a distribution of Linux to try, I'd mention Kubuntu Linux or Mandriva Linux currently.
While the current interface is supported just fine on Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X and so on... Of course with MacOSX, it has to be a completely rewritten interface, for a niche set of users that do nothing but complain constantly when there isn't a Mac port.
Then complain that the application is crap because it doesn't feel like Aqua (because Apple didn't make decent portable widget libraries for GTK and so on -- I don't even want to get into the broken stuff they did with awt and swt in Java -- requiring you to EXTEND the interface for it to work properly which breaks the binary support for other platforms).
I remember when they used to flood Skype's plugin reviews with that crap...
It got into the hundreds often, and people were telling them to shut the hell up. Although now Skype whiped all the old reviews, and created a 'comments' section for plugins. While not in the hundreds, you still get the same crap every now and then.
You forgot to mention one, but...
I like the ones that complain about lack of macro support (claiming there is none at all), when the majority of used functions have already been implemented allowing most macros to run just fine.
Actually, they're supporting Win2k, where Microsoft is not with their new applications. Then again, I've actually ran Wine on one system to avoid the need to upgrade Win2k.
As for older OS X releases, is there a problem with upgrading the OS? -- Apparently the new versions of the OS are faster than the old on the same hardware (I keep hearing this from certain people on Slashdot).
You need better instructions to replicate the problem.
Oh just a note, I enabled KDE's top menu bar function (Mac OS X look-alike).. And the GTK applications (which are using the QT wrapper engine) are displaying their menus just fine from the top bar.
I do think Apple should write their own widget wrappers, without requiring aqua-extensions to get things working and without requiring huge clunks of additional code to the UI code which is only usable on Mac OS X.
I agree, let's drop OOo support for Mac OS X
What VB macro viruses work in OOo's implementation?
Sorry, I don't think there will be many applications some how.
Yeah!
How dare they try to improve Samba and OpenOffice.org!?
We want compensation!