I know these guys should know what they are talking about, but it feels a bit strange to take technical advice from someone who claims that "To download and uncompress zipped files you need to have winzip loaded on your local machine." on their XP advice page. I thought even XP could do that without addons, not to mention other OS:es which also seem to manage it just fine.
Maybe they are just sponsored. Or is that "bribed" when it comes to governments?:)
Well a help system is a pretty central feature. Especially when it often wants your attention (the lightbulb) and then fails when you give that attention.
Several Linux distributions are based partly around comercial products, for instance Xandros includes Crossover office, and Linspire also includes some paid for software if I remember correctly.
However, a free (in any sense of the word) Linux distro is hard to see.
The wxWindows Licence is essentially the L-GPL (Library General Public Licence), with an exception stating that derived works in binary form may be distributed on the user's own terms. This is a solution that satisfies those who wish to produce GPL'ed software using wxWidgets, and also those producing proprietary software.
Maybe Dell have commonly supported parts already, too. I installed Hoary from a printed CD on a Dell laptop, think it was a D600 although I don't have it here. As far as I could tell everything just worked out of the box, including the wireless network at school, printers and other things.
Admittedly, I didn't test everything on purpose, I just installed, got on the network and started working. What I can say is that since I didn't react to anything not working, most things probably did.
... but it would be pretty interesting days to live in for a time. Just imagine the circus! =)
Then again, it might just be good for us who run not Windows. I mean, most important servers and the like aren't running Windows anyway, and those who do are probably pretty well firewalled. So we'd have the internet all to ourselves - probably the only thing I'd notice for quite some time is a shorter "Online Buddies" list.;-)
Now, if we had the games, imagine those ping times!
Nope, running Gnome at the moment. Nothing against KDE, but I don't like to mix environments - although whenever I try to use Gedit I do cry for Kate. =)
PageDown or Space does (almost?) this, jumping a good part forward (as in jump forward not quite a complete viewport). CTRL-PageDown jumps a whole page.
Re:Waiting for apps isn't annoying, focus stealing
on
GNOME 2.12 Released
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· Score: 1
Hey, that's fantastic news! Guess I wasn't the only one that was annoyed then. =)
Waiting for apps isn't annoying, focus stealing is
on
GNOME 2.12 Released
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I don't mind waiting so much, if it's a heavy app, but I'm really, really annoyed that applications steal back the focus when they finally appear. It's so unintiutive and annoying. Then again, all (or at least the ones I know of) OS:es and managers do this, so it's not specific to Gnome.
If you don't understand what I mean, here's the point: I often start up an application that I will use "in a while" and then proceed to navigate further in Nautilus or whatever. When the app starts, it steals back focus even though I already do something else. That is not usability. There's two use cases:
1. User starts application, waits for it to complete. This would cover almost all common use and especially non-power use. Focus remains with started application from the point that I start it.
2. User starts application, proceeds to give other window focus (by click, ALT-tab, whatever). Starting application at this point loses focus and will not regain it.
Ok, so if the app doesn't steal focus, it may not be obvious that it's finished? That's what the new taskbar hints is for, and it's also a matter of how you behave. Any user likely to have problems with this probably wait for each app to start in turn anyways, so it's not likely to be a problem.
Now this I would like to see. It annoys me at least a couple of times a day.:) And if there is a way to get this behaviour today, please please tell me!
Don't know about hype, but to me it's very useful because it has support for *all* features of PDF that I need (and that I can think of), while at the same time being as light and snappy as Acrobat without plugins. Most of these features are navigational ones, internal and external, thumbs, ToC and so on, well executed and easy to use.
More supported formats would be useful, and under way, but it is already far, far more than a prettier Ghostview.
Oh sorry, missing one feature from Acrobat: multiple documents. Have hope up.
I've been trying the Evince in Breezy and it's a really neat application. Up till just recently I was defending Acrobat Reader as the only useful PDF reader, because no other reader handled thumbs, ToCs and were generally bug free enough for general consumtion. Actually, I still think Acrobat is ok, as long as you don't install the plugins package - that's what is taking all the resources. Drawback is that you can't click external links anymore and some other minor things.
And then: enter Evince. Does everything I need, has good support for thumbs, ToC, search and it is is really fast too. I can even click those links, both external and internal, very very nice. It also provides thumbnails to Nautilus, further strengthening preview. More formats will be nice, but I mainly do and will use it for PDF. Acrobat's a goner!
The only thing I'm missing is multiple documents, preferably in tabs. Acrobat has this via the "Windows" menu, and most other apps use this as a great way to collect multiple relevant whatevers in the same window instead of cluttering the task bar. Browsers, IMs, editors, well just about anything does this. Sadly it seems the makers of Evince disagree: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=306060 - I think they misunderstand the issue though, it's not about interlinking and "remembering to read". Hope it will be reopened at some point as it is both consistent with other apps (like Epiphany) and extremely useful.
A bad idea is a bad idea and should be opposed even if there would be some short term benefits to "do as they do". Starting to use patents would give this particular bad idea legitimacy and would only start another arms race. And we've seen how good that works for solving any problems...
I think it's great that people have the guts, stamina and principles to do what they think is the long term right thing even though it's not the easy path.
Software patents simple is a horrible and flawed idea and so it should never be acknowledged as a viable way forward.
It's the difference between an empty bucket and no bucket. In some cases, an empty bucket is as useless as no bucket, but there is still a significant difference.
Heh. What do you know. I just stumbled upon Evince, which is a part of Gnome, a fork/replacement of GPDF. I'm not sure if it's generally available yet, but it (version 0.4.0) was possible to install in Ubuntu Breezy. This might just be the Acrobat killer I am looking for, it seems very promising at least.
Being a general document viewer, it shows not only PDF but several other formats with more coming, like ppt and OpenOffice.org formats if I read it right. It's also supposed to preview supported docs in Nautilus, but that doesn't work for me (I guess that will be in 2.12, I've seen screenshots though).
It seems to have everything I need in form of navigation, search and so on, looks real nice. And it feels fast too.
Actually, if you just don't install the plugins package Acrobat is both really snappy and well behaved (this is on Ubuntu). That's why there are tutorials all over the web on how to remove most plugins from Acrobat on Windows. The actual reader is lightweight and nice, it's all those unnecessary extras (including DRM and privacy-invading javascripts that some are so afraid of) that's the bloat.
It's actually pretty funny that they've designed the application in a good way so things can be removed and added like this, but at the same time seems to want this to be a secret and prefers to tell the users that they need it all. Of course, this is probably just sound marketing strategy from their point of view, and the average user probably rather waits a bit than for something not to work. Not having those plugins installed means that URLs aren't clickable for instance, but I can live with the occassional copy/paste instead - and if I really wanted to, I could manually get that plugin.
So, Acrobat is really the choice as far as I can tell, even though it's not a good moral or political choice. Sure, there are plenty of other alternatives to choose from under Linux, but so far I've found none that's actually useable unless you only do sequential reading - page by page, from start to end. The few PDF:s I use are usually references and manuals of some sort, or sometimes large design documents. I need the ability to navigate these quickly. Search, bookmarks, ToC, and thumbs all those things are either missing or seriously hobbled in all the alternatives I've tried at least.
Feel free to inform me of the one I've missed. I can live with crappy rendering, if needs be, but I do need a good UI.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes.
it's um... not a daemon.
A daemon is not a demon.
I know these guys should know what they are talking about, but it feels a bit strange to take technical advice from someone who claims that "To download and uncompress zipped files you need to have winzip loaded on your local machine." on their XP advice page. I thought even XP could do that without addons, not to mention other OS:es which also seem to manage it just fine.
:)
Maybe they are just sponsored. Or is that "bribed" when it comes to governments?
Well a help system is a pretty central feature. Especially when it often wants your attention (the lightbulb) and then fails when you give that attention.
Several Linux distributions are based partly around comercial products, for instance Xandros includes Crossover office, and Linspire also includes some paid for software if I remember correctly.
However, a free (in any sense of the word) Linux distro is hard to see.
What's so wrong with joking with the North American Marlon Brando Look Alikes? I think they can take it. =)
http://www.wxwidgets.org/newlicen.htm
http://www.jensofsweden.com/ - nice players, and they can even handle Q9 if I remember correctly.
Link it properly for Google: Extortion Fee ;-)
To put that in further perspective it might of interest to know that Sweden only has a population of about 9 million.
Maybe Dell have commonly supported parts already, too. I installed Hoary from a printed CD on a Dell laptop, think it was a D600 although I don't have it here. As far as I could tell everything just worked out of the box, including the wireless network at school, printers and other things.
Admittedly, I didn't test everything on purpose, I just installed, got on the network and started working. What I can say is that since I didn't react to anything not working, most things probably did.
Oh, lawyers are mammals, they just look seem reptilian.
... but it would be pretty interesting days to live in for a time. Just imagine the circus! =)
;-)
Then again, it might just be good for us who run not Windows. I mean, most important servers and the like aren't running Windows anyway, and those who do are probably pretty well firewalled. So we'd have the internet all to ourselves - probably the only thing I'd notice for quite some time is a shorter "Online Buddies" list.
Now, if we had the games, imagine those ping times!
>> Hasn't Linux for the desktop been 5 years away for the last 10 years?
;-)
> It was only 3 years away 10 years ago.
And with some luck, and hard work, it might be 10 years away after the next 10 years!
Maybe not what the Gnome guys meant by the 10x10 goal, but hey it's a goal at least!
Both.
Nope, running Gnome at the moment. Nothing against KDE, but I don't like to mix environments - although whenever I try to use Gedit I do cry for Kate. =)
Hey, that's fantastic news! Guess I wasn't the only one that was annoyed then. =)
I don't mind waiting so much, if it's a heavy app, but I'm really, really annoyed that applications steal back the focus when they finally appear. It's so unintiutive and annoying. Then again, all (or at least the ones I know of) OS:es and managers do this, so it's not specific to Gnome.
:) And if there is a way to get this behaviour today, please please tell me!
If you don't understand what I mean, here's the point: I often start up an application that I will use "in a while" and then proceed to navigate further in Nautilus or whatever. When the app starts, it steals back focus even though I already do something else. That is not usability. There's two use cases:
1. User starts application, waits for it to complete. This would cover almost all common use and especially non-power use. Focus remains with started application from the point that I start it.
2. User starts application, proceeds to give other window focus (by click, ALT-tab, whatever). Starting application at this point loses focus and will not regain it.
Ok, so if the app doesn't steal focus, it may not be obvious that it's finished? That's what the new taskbar hints is for, and it's also a matter of how you behave. Any user likely to have problems with this probably wait for each app to start in turn anyways, so it's not likely to be a problem.
Now this I would like to see. It annoys me at least a couple of times a day.
Don't know about hype, but to me it's very useful because it has support for *all* features of PDF that I need (and that I can think of), while at the same time being as light and snappy as Acrobat without plugins. Most of these features are navigational ones, internal and external, thumbs, ToC and so on, well executed and easy to use.
More supported formats would be useful, and under way, but it is already far, far more than a prettier Ghostview.
Oh sorry, missing one feature from Acrobat: multiple documents. Have hope up.
I've been trying the Evince in Breezy and it's a really neat application. Up till just recently I was defending Acrobat Reader as the only useful PDF reader, because no other reader handled thumbs, ToCs and were generally bug free enough for general consumtion. Actually, I still think Acrobat is ok, as long as you don't install the plugins package - that's what is taking all the resources. Drawback is that you can't click external links anymore and some other minor things.
And then: enter Evince. Does everything I need, has good support for thumbs, ToC, search and it is is really fast too. I can even click those links, both external and internal, very very nice. It also provides thumbnails to Nautilus, further strengthening preview. More formats will be nice, but I mainly do and will use it for PDF. Acrobat's a goner!
The only thing I'm missing is multiple documents, preferably in tabs. Acrobat has this via the "Windows" menu, and most other apps use this as a great way to collect multiple relevant whatevers in the same window instead of cluttering the task bar. Browsers, IMs, editors, well just about anything does this. Sadly it seems the makers of Evince disagree: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=306060 - I think they misunderstand the issue though, it's not about interlinking and "remembering to read". Hope it will be reopened at some point as it is both consistent with other apps (like Epiphany) and extremely useful.
A bad idea is a bad idea and should be opposed even if there would be some short term benefits to "do as they do". Starting to use patents would give this particular bad idea legitimacy and would only start another arms race. And we've seen how good that works for solving any problems...
I think it's great that people have the guts, stamina and principles to do what they think is the long term right thing even though it's not the easy path.
Software patents simple is a horrible and flawed idea and so it should never be acknowledged as a viable way forward.
It's the difference between an empty bucket and no bucket. In some cases, an empty bucket is as useless as no bucket, but there is still a significant difference.
Heh. What do you know. I just stumbled upon Evince, which is a part of Gnome, a fork/replacement of GPDF. I'm not sure if it's generally available yet, but it (version 0.4.0) was possible to install in Ubuntu Breezy. This might just be the Acrobat killer I am looking for, it seems very promising at least.
Being a general document viewer, it shows not only PDF but several other formats with more coming, like ppt and OpenOffice.org formats if I read it right. It's also supposed to preview supported docs in Nautilus, but that doesn't work for me (I guess that will be in 2.12, I've seen screenshots though).
It seems to have everything I need in form of navigation, search and so on, looks real nice. And it feels fast too.
Actually, if you just don't install the plugins package Acrobat is both really snappy and well behaved (this is on Ubuntu). That's why there are tutorials all over the web on how to remove most plugins from Acrobat on Windows. The actual reader is lightweight and nice, it's all those unnecessary extras (including DRM and privacy-invading javascripts that some are so afraid of) that's the bloat.
It's actually pretty funny that they've designed the application in a good way so things can be removed and added like this, but at the same time seems to want this to be a secret and prefers to tell the users that they need it all. Of course, this is probably just sound marketing strategy from their point of view, and the average user probably rather waits a bit than for something not to work. Not having those plugins installed means that URLs aren't clickable for instance, but I can live with the occassional copy/paste instead - and if I really wanted to, I could manually get that plugin.
So, Acrobat is really the choice as far as I can tell, even though it's not a good moral or political choice. Sure, there are plenty of other alternatives to choose from under Linux, but so far I've found none that's actually useable unless you only do sequential reading - page by page, from start to end. The few PDF:s I use are usually references and manuals of some sort, or sometimes large design documents. I need the ability to navigate these quickly. Search, bookmarks, ToC, and thumbs all those things are either missing or seriously hobbled in all the alternatives I've tried at least.
Feel free to inform me of the one I've missed. I can live with crappy rendering, if needs be, but I do need a good UI.