I think this is the main problem with "linux marketing". They haven't told average users in their terms what "net gain" they will experience from switching, and doing the required work in order to switch (checking hardware requirements, researching which distribution to pick, etc). Most users believe the virus scanner that came with their computer is enough and don't care. Perhaps we should be emphasizing less spyware, free upgrades (portage, yast, apt-get, etc), no viruses, less strict hardware requirements, etc, so that more users don't feel they have to be system administrators to run linux.
somewhat offtopic, but the thing that gets me is that how everybody knows what "bad music" is. what you don't like != "bad music".
having said that, i would bet that customers aren't going to like their music crammed with all sorts of restrictions on its use and what "approved" players the music is played on. the ones that aren't up to speed on drm will get the message very quickly.
it really shows just how one simple game, still after all these years, sill has replay value. tetris is a rare game that to this day has me twitching in fits that i can't place the t block where i want it to go. 7 simple geometric shapes still rule the puzzle game landscape. its just amazing what a following this game has after all these years. i STILL love tetris!
this is all good and i certainly use firefox at home, but while there will be many posts praising tabbed browsing, extensions, etc, sadly, i think we'll be preaching to the choir more than anything else. most p eople who even know firefox exists probably have tried it and like it, the other 95% will still be on ie. maybe i'm pessimistic, but i just don't see a massive migration happening just through word of mouth.
the riaa tends to be trying to kill a swarm by swatting at individual bees. for every one they swat, a new one is bred. they'll have to sue for a long time for them to get their desired results, and by that time people will have moved on to better distribution channels.
how lazy are we that we can't even walk two inches to the fridge for a beer between games? nowadays most games take forever to change levels (for an fps) so thats plenty of time to get your snacks:)
layoffs, people divesting stock, we all knew it was a matter of time, and like always, "the industry" is behind in its observations.
sco has no allies now, even baystar is hinting at letting go. this will probably mean a dismissal of all the suits eventually (hopefully with extreme prejudice), and linux will have had more advertising than money could buy.
well, nintendo used to have a stranglehold on the console markets with the snes, and everybody said sony didn't have a chance with the original playstation, and looked what happened there. while nintendo's handheld market is extremely strong, i wouldn't underestimate sony, especially if more "mature" games are on its new system to counteract mario and pokemon.
most modern fps games have demos you can record and play back the entire battle. actually most events post these games on their websites. counterstrike demos have been out for years, and also unreal tournament, quake 3, and even rts games like warcraft 3, starcraft, and the age of empires series have recorded games where you can watch from one or both players viewpoints in its entirety.
the theory is that if you have many eyes looking at the source of application Z, then any security lapses, buffer overflows, etc will be caught before distribution. if a person took the code for application Z and wrote some sort of rootkit or something into it, and redistributed it as a third party program under the GPL, then there is the potential for a virus, but in general linux users tend to be more cautious of third party binary programs not "tested" by a known entity. seeing the source to a program has advantages and disadvantages, and one of the disadvantages is that anybody can use it for any purpose. when you give out that sort of freedom, you don't have control over what other people do with it, good or bad.
if a member of your family said they wanted a new pc, what name are they going to associate with a new computer? chances are if they don't say hp, they'll be saying dell. dell may not be the entire pc industry to geeks, but for "average users" they represent one of the main places to get a fully loaded pc over the internet alongisde hp/compaq. the ceo of amd needs to have the foresight to see that while the server business is nice with the opterons, it would be foolish to just insult one of if not the main pc supplier in the united states if you want them to put your chips in your servers/desktops.
i honestly don't think it matters too much. i mean really what more on the gui can we actually do that would be considered "innovative"? put desktop icons in a different place? move a taskbar here or there?
if your primary goal is to make it easier for windows users to get accustomed to linux, then a desktop that resembles windows makes sense. besides, its just how it looks to them. you still have the underlying linux security no matter how ugly/pretty the desktop looks like.
as for unifying development, while i agree that a basic set of rules wouldn't be a bad thing, part of the advantage of linux is in its variety. just look at how many websites and programs are devoted to change the look and feel of windows xp. style xp, object dock, litestep, i know i'm missing some others, but any search for those and you'll find many people that don't have the standard "start" and taskbar buttons. variety of desktops isn't stopping determined people from using linux. its tie in to hardware, locked down apis, and a chicken and egg situation with drivers that are keeping people from linux.
anybody can learn a new gui. the same people that people consider "lusers" had to learn their way through the windows gui when they HAD to to get their work done, and with most guis for linux being similar to windows, in theory it really shouldn't take that long. in a business setting, just give them a basic desktop locked down with icons to whatever word replacement, excel replacement, browser replacement, etc they need and outside of it being called different most users won't even notice the difference.
i don't think steve jobs has anything to fear from sony considering you have an old, aging minidisc format, working on only win98-xp pcs, and really not offering up that much initial space, 1 gig? i'm not even an mp3 whore and i have more music than that.
probably the same reason why we have oil deals with saudi arabia, despite the fact that most of the 9/11 terrorists were from there. i'm sure not every country agrees with what the usa is doing but still trades with us. we all tend to overlook certain "deficiencies" when there are greater "benefits".
it is my first in a while (i used mandrake about 3 years ago and gave up since i couldn't get quake 3 running without pulling teeth), and i couldn't be happier (although my sound is like a second behind). i actually think too that is good for beginners (like me) since it forces you to learn about the os that you either never knew or was too afraid to fool with.
i know that when i decided to try from stage 1 i was worried about editing tons of config files wrong and fucking up any and all types of programs, but i found that the files are documented (for the most part) fairly well and usually if something fucks up its because i either mistyped or didn't spell correctly.
it seems the consensus is that mandrake 10 and suse (don't remember the version) are the best starter desktops. i haven't messed with fedora (just got the confidence to try and install gentoo from stage 1). from when i used to use mandrake i didn't have any "basic" problems. web, email, sound, graphics, all that went without a hitch.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this is the main problem with "linux marketing". They haven't told average users in their terms what "net gain" they will experience from switching, and doing the required work in order to switch (checking hardware requirements, researching which distribution to pick, etc). Most users believe the virus scanner that came with their computer is enough and don't care. Perhaps we should be emphasizing less spyware, free upgrades (portage, yast, apt-get, etc), no viruses, less strict hardware requirements, etc, so that more users don't feel they have to be system administrators to run linux.
somewhat offtopic, but the thing that gets me is that how everybody knows what "bad music" is. what you don't like != "bad music".
having said that, i would bet that customers aren't going to like their music crammed with all sorts of restrictions on its use and what "approved" players the music is played on. the ones that aren't up to speed on drm will get the message very quickly.
it really shows just how one simple game, still after all these years, sill has replay value. tetris is a rare game that to this day has me twitching in fits that i can't place the t block where i want it to go. 7 simple geometric shapes still rule the puzzle game landscape. its just amazing what a following this game has after all these years. i STILL love tetris!
this is all good and i certainly use firefox at home, but while there will be many posts praising tabbed browsing, extensions, etc, sadly, i think we'll be preaching to the choir more than anything else. most p eople who even know firefox exists probably have tried it and like it, the other 95% will still be on ie. maybe i'm pessimistic, but i just don't see a massive migration happening just through word of mouth.
the riaa tends to be trying to kill a swarm by swatting at individual bees. for every one they swat, a new one is bred. they'll have to sue for a long time for them to get their desired results, and by that time people will have moved on to better distribution channels.
how lazy are we that we can't even walk two inches to the fridge for a beer between games? nowadays most games take forever to change levels (for an fps) so thats plenty of time to get your snacks :)
layoffs, people divesting stock, we all knew it was a matter of time, and like always, "the industry" is behind in its observations. sco has no allies now, even baystar is hinting at letting go. this will probably mean a dismissal of all the suits eventually (hopefully with extreme prejudice), and linux will have had more advertising than money could buy.
well, nintendo used to have a stranglehold on the console markets with the snes, and everybody said sony didn't have a chance with the original playstation, and looked what happened there. while nintendo's handheld market is extremely strong, i wouldn't underestimate sony, especially if more "mature" games are on its new system to counteract mario and pokemon.
most modern fps games have demos you can record and play back the entire battle. actually most events post these games on their websites. counterstrike demos have been out for years, and also unreal tournament, quake 3, and even rts games like warcraft 3, starcraft, and the age of empires series have recorded games where you can watch from one or both players viewpoints in its entirety.
the woman robot is the one with the more complicated remote control =)
the theory is that if you have many eyes looking at the source of application Z, then any security lapses, buffer overflows, etc will be caught before distribution. if a person took the code for application Z and wrote some sort of rootkit or something into it, and redistributed it as a third party program under the GPL, then there is the potential for a virus, but in general linux users tend to be more cautious of third party binary programs not "tested" by a known entity. seeing the source to a program has advantages and disadvantages, and one of the disadvantages is that anybody can use it for any purpose. when you give out that sort of freedom, you don't have control over what other people do with it, good or bad.
too lazy to hit the shift key. besides, i never liked capitalization =)
if a member of your family said they wanted a new pc, what name are they going to associate with a new computer? chances are if they don't say hp, they'll be saying dell. dell may not be the entire pc industry to geeks, but for "average users" they represent one of the main places to get a fully loaded pc over the internet alongisde hp/compaq. the ceo of amd needs to have the foresight to see that while the server business is nice with the opterons, it would be foolish to just insult one of if not the main pc supplier in the united states if you want them to put your chips in your servers/desktops.
i honestly don't think it matters too much. i mean really what more on the gui can we actually do that would be considered "innovative"? put desktop icons in a different place? move a taskbar here or there? if your primary goal is to make it easier for windows users to get accustomed to linux, then a desktop that resembles windows makes sense. besides, its just how it looks to them. you still have the underlying linux security no matter how ugly/pretty the desktop looks like. as for unifying development, while i agree that a basic set of rules wouldn't be a bad thing, part of the advantage of linux is in its variety. just look at how many websites and programs are devoted to change the look and feel of windows xp. style xp, object dock, litestep, i know i'm missing some others, but any search for those and you'll find many people that don't have the standard "start" and taskbar buttons. variety of desktops isn't stopping determined people from using linux. its tie in to hardware, locked down apis, and a chicken and egg situation with drivers that are keeping people from linux. anybody can learn a new gui. the same people that people consider "lusers" had to learn their way through the windows gui when they HAD to to get their work done, and with most guis for linux being similar to windows, in theory it really shouldn't take that long. in a business setting, just give them a basic desktop locked down with icons to whatever word replacement, excel replacement, browser replacement, etc they need and outside of it being called different most users won't even notice the difference.
i don't think steve jobs has anything to fear from sony considering you have an old, aging minidisc format, working on only win98-xp pcs, and really not offering up that much initial space, 1 gig? i'm not even an mp3 whore and i have more music than that.
you could go here and save about 7000 bucks ;)
Puget Systems
probably the same reason why we have oil deals with saudi arabia, despite the fact that most of the 9/11 terrorists were from there. i'm sure not every country agrees with what the usa is doing but still trades with us. we all tend to overlook certain "deficiencies" when there are greater "benefits".
i was always under the impression that many bands actually encouraged recording concerts and such. am i missing something?
it is my first in a while (i used mandrake about 3 years ago and gave up since i couldn't get quake 3 running without pulling teeth), and i couldn't be happier (although my sound is like a second behind). i actually think too that is good for beginners (like me) since it forces you to learn about the os that you either never knew or was too afraid to fool with. i know that when i decided to try from stage 1 i was worried about editing tons of config files wrong and fucking up any and all types of programs, but i found that the files are documented (for the most part) fairly well and usually if something fucks up its because i either mistyped or didn't spell correctly.
it seems the consensus is that mandrake 10 and suse (don't remember the version) are the best starter desktops. i haven't messed with fedora (just got the confidence to try and install gentoo from stage 1). from when i used to use mandrake i didn't have any "basic" problems. web, email, sound, graphics, all that went without a hitch.