For the umpteenth time Apple don't "make hardware" any more than IBM make Lenovo laptops and call them Thinkpads. Taiwanese companies Quanta Computing and Asustek "make" the Macbooks just as they did the Powerbooks and iBooks before that. These two companies got the Apple contract because of low production margins resulting from them already making half the worlds notebooks. Look it up and learn what O.E.M means. Apple is closer to a "value added reseller" than a hardware manufacturer.
If it is to be renamed then why not do it with some reference to the reason. A name like FreeFox or similar would at least maintain symbolic connection to the parent while underscoring that it is a wholly non-proprietary distribution of that parent. 'IceWeasel' sounds directly antagonistic of FireFox itself. If FireFox is hot, then it's alternative must be cold. It itself reads as a childishly extremist 'reaction' to what should otherwise be understood as a wise and considered move, for real and sane reasons.
The sheer lack of foresight amazes me. For years afterward we'll be hearing damaging myths that "FireFox doesn't install on Linux". Newbies coming into IRC to ask how to install FireFox will be pointed to what's later knows as the longest running $TOPIC in history. 'IceWeasel' just adds needless noise for all those millions considering switching to a Linux OS. FireFox is arguably the most important FOSS application for the desktop, if only because of it's notoriety. The name itself is larger than the software it represents. fscking with this reveals new depths of disregard for the adoption of Desktop Linux more generally.
What a stupid name. Then again, these days "Absurdly stupid" == "'Edgy'. Exhibits a penchant for the uncanny or unusual. A Likely source of pleasant surprises."
Firstly, given that Linux is still the fastest growing operating system, I'd say it's foolish to _not_ expose kids to the basics of using a Linux OS. The fact that they won't piss themselves with fear at the site of a GNOME desktop in later life is probably to their advantage, if only because they'll have more diverse concept of what constitutes a 'PC'. I think you're being a wee bit black and white - prior experience of alternatives can only make you wiser and more useful in most contexts, workplace and otherwise.
Finally there are vast numbers of Linux users (eg people using the OS) that have very little or no contact with the command line. Those long heady nights trying to tame the third button of your mouse, with vi as your Excalibur, are long since over.
Agreed. I spent some time working with OSX 10.4 recently and found the lack of an ability to upgrade installed software using an update tool like apt was sorely missed.
Having to consciously track versions of non-OSX shipped software yourself - to go to websites to find and install updates on a per-package basis - is too labour intensive for a machine I simply want to get work done on.
Apple will gain market share in the desktop but not at the expense of Linux.
Apple has a significant glass ceiling where wide growth is concerned: do you imagine schools in the third world are going to roll out Apple desktops for tens of millions of students? That whole governments are going to buy iMacs? Extremely unlikely. Apple is a U.S corporation with an OS tied to a single platform. The big growth areas for the desktop, in the sense of mass 'adoption', are just not there for Apple as they don't meet criteria where growth is demanded the most. Apple and Linux are not in the same 'market space', so to speak. Despite both OS's enjoying healthy growth on the desktop in western-world, Linux has bigger fish to fry.
Linux sells itself with every restriction corporations place on people's capacity to do what they want with their own computer. This is the very fortunate 'negative space' Linux is, and will always be, situated within. Force nor 'strategic incorporation' of proprietary software should apply. If something else comes along that gives more of the freedom, quality and wealth of software I experience with Linux, I'll jump, and many others would too.
ESR should take _his_ mono-dimensional zeal off the shelf and lose a little religion. Linux is already an OS used gladly by millions - yes even luddites and artists - and more so day by day. Some have chosen it because it gives them more flexibility, customisability, performance, freedom, $VALUE than other OS's, other's because they simply feel more productive using it.
If you don't appreciate having freedom of movement and fine performance at the level of your personal computing device, or just don't think Linux swings with a pair of Adidas like OSX does, who gives a Flying Balmer.
To say it's soley the torch of nerd idealism these days is entertaining blindness... or opportunistic journalism born of a waning career.
Here are a few valid reasons for moving to lab grown meat.
The maintenance of cows for purposes of eating is the drives a massive proportion of the Earth's deforestation. Ironically, while cows themselves take up a lot of space, it's their food which takes up more, and that food is generally a crop of soya. This land could otherwise be reforested (much of the Brazilian rainforest has been levelled for the purpose of North America's meat markets) and we'd have more air to breathe.
Cow herds reduce the quality of the earth they live on dramatically. This is the source, all over the world, of landslides and polluted waterways
Methane-emitting cow shit is directly attributed to a significant proportion of the ozone layer's decay. Absurd, but true.
Finally, it is not possible to give cows the happy and healthy life you're talking about at the rate the world wishes to consume them. They have to be stuffed into small spaces and pumped with metabolically maddening hormones to be grown up and slaughtered in time for the next checkout sale. Instead adult and child cows are stuffed into trucks, led off those trucks into the factory where they'll be slain, partially stunned with either a knock to the head (or a large electric shock), hooks are often inserted between the tendon and the shin and they're swung up sidedown and their throat is slit. This is something I've seen first hand.
No matter how you look at it, the life of a cow - and all other animals industrialised for eating by Humans - in the 21st century is a very sad one. Eating meat directly funds a hell of alot of misery. Either raise and kill the animal you eat with your own hands (from experience, this changes your perspective on meat and its industrialisation considerably) or simply eat meat grown in a Lab.
'Origins' aside, it's mining companies (and venture capitalists with an eye for off-world enterprises) that will be most interested in these findings, lending the idea that they are likely funding some of this research.
While this may sound absurd, it's perhaps worth asking: How much rock do you have to move off the Moon before the Earth starts seeing climatic changes as a result? Any one know of research into this area? Given the blatant denial certain first word countries have evidence in the face of an eroding Ozone layer, let's hope the moon isn't laden with valuable metals, ores and other resources..
No, it does well in the film industry because of 3D performance. Maya on Linux is an industry standard because it simply outperforms it's peers. I know of several people in the scientific community that use Linux for it's 64bit processing power, and Linux's native capacity to scale CPU wise. Apple workstations may be being used as a comfortable workstations in some areas, but certainly not where real high-performance computing is concerned. Apple's poor memory management will need to improve before it's taken seriously as a workstation OS in demanding contexts.
This is the most reliable trajectory to ensure increased dependence on Windows and Windows products, most of all through the technology lock-in that is DirectX. Anyone touting this as the boat that will carry them from the foul shores of Microsoft are clearly out of their dangling minds.
This is bad for OpenGL/SDL/Qt and bad for any platform which relies on these tools for both game and non-game applications; as long as people can author games on the Windows platform and run it in a WINE-like wrapper, they won't consider native releases. OpenGL will get less attention as the market consolidates on DirectX and the quality and feature-set of the code falls behind as a result. It really can, and in fact does, work like that.
DirectX has risen from near nothing in a few short years. MS invested alot of money strategically situating the platform dependent DirectX in opposition to the platform neutral OpenGL on the Windows platform through tools and API development, and to a large degree it has worked. Games are faster made for the Windows platform using these high-level Windows-only API's, and so now many developers consider DirectX on Windows as the only sane context for game development altogether. As a result, DX will continue to rise at the great expense of platform portable tools like OpenGL if it is blindly, yet directly, supported by idiocy like this. Let's not invite a day we have 'DirectX only' on the back of some graphic cards.
I'll say it again. Projects such as Cedega and 'Cider' ensure long-term codepedency with MS, as a technology provider, at the expense of high performing, native games. This simply takes Apple and Linux build targets 'off the map' from the perspective of game development and lets them get on with making great games for Windows - ensuring MS is always that arsehole you call when you're high, dry and have got the shakes.
Dumping Windows for Linux or OSX is only the first step to being free of MS products, the dirty blood runs deeper than that.
What the hell is it with Ubuntu anyway, you might be able to do the same with automatix or easy ubuntu or what not, but freespire makes it LEGAL (at least in the US, in the civilised word software patent don't yet apply)!
Only a small proportion of all humans on Earth live in America. For this reason - and the support of a massive Ubuntu userbase - Ubuntu with Automatix/Easy Ubuntu is both a sane and legal option for most.
Today two NASA websites were attacked as well. The intrusion was carried out by the Chilean group of crackers known as Byond Hackers Crew through a leak in the SQL Injection they entered the system and subtracted user names, passwords and e-mails from the NASA web server.
As much as OSX on a server is a contradiction of terms at the best of times, this wasn't an OS level exploit.
Files might be being downloaded 'illegally' but here in Europe the recording industry is doing better than it ever was. These n-billion files that are being downloaded cannot be counted as a loss, as they wouldn't be bought anyway. They are being downloaded precisely because they are free; an argument for damage here is absurd.
P2P is best thought of as an advanced try-before-you-buy network. For this reason the people that are losing money from P2P are not recording artists, but Marketing Execs that would like to steer our consumption interests and habits, in short to push crap on us we don't want. P2P lifts the standards of consumer choice.
You are actually considering OpenOffice a valid replacement of Microsoft Office?
Many have used word processors other than MS Office for so long that this question is meaningless. You can't replace what you don't already use. But sure, to play the game:
Can I export PDF's from MS Word? No. Does it run on my existing platform? No. Is MS Word more secure than OO? No. [...]
Strictly speaking the comparison table on page 2 is incorrect. Opera does have themes, many of them, albeit the browser isn't shipped with them as such.
Re:Comments from people who actually create Creati
on
Beginning GIMP
·
· Score: 1
Um, those are the same thing... It doesn't matter what order the "modifiers" are in, all that matters is that all the specified modifiers are pressed before pressing A. I know because I just tried it.
As did I and you're right. My point however is that the keybind itself is unweildy. It's simply ridiculous to require 3 keys to 'Select None', let alone 3 keys so close together. Why not use ESC (increasingly predominant in graphical suite UI's) or Ctrl-A (select all) Mod1-A (select none), for instance?
Yes I do use a 'desktop environment' of sorts, WMII to be precise. On my Ubuntu box (Gnome DE) it is no better. Frankly the idea of moving from workspace to workspace to access individual images (at times I have 10 or 15 open) or to select new tools and change brushes, sounds dizzying and far too management intensive for daily use. I'd probably lose complete track of where everything is after a few hours of work.
The point is to reduce the amount of key-presses to access functions and editable assets, not increase them. Even if you are correct, and spreading out a project over multiple desktops is the way to go, it's a very bad sign that GIMP relies on this to be useful whereas other graphic suites/applications do not. I've used and appreciated multiple workspaces for close to 8 years, and this does not seem like a good application for them. I think the fact still stands, having individual, user managed X windows for each component of an image editing application is madness. Part of a sensible desktop environment is having 'windows' and/or focusable elements grouped by task. GIMP goes in the other direction and as such demands alot from the user.
Re:Comments from people who actually create Creati
on
Beginning GIMP
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Disclaimer: I'm a fan of the GIMP and am extremely glad for it's existance.
I've used GIMP for some years and on the odd occassion have used it to do professional 2D work. While it is extremely powerful when used with knowledge, the core developers are a guarded and decidedly stubborn bunch with a penchant for ignoring basic feature requests from users that they feel might somehow 'threaten' their political differentiation against Photoshop. Of course they care very little to admit this overtly apparent and often discussed tendency.
As a result we are still stuck with an insane GUI windowing model whereby all palettes, brushes, dialogues, and main toolbar need to be *managed* as separate windows. This makes GIMP a very click-intensive application to use, and this is something that no RSI-fearing designer worth their weight in pixels would want to dance with.
Is it really such a demoralizing design concession that GIMP adopts the 1 parent window, many-child-window model that nearly every graphical application (including 3D modelers) use? Providing a toggleable full screen option (tricky in X I know) and the ability to quickly define which of your child-windows are visible would boost productivity with the GIMP (for most) a great deal (currently GIMP is really only as productive as Photoshop with a dual-screen setup - a luxury not all have). It would also aid those that want to transition from Photoshop - and there are many, believe it or not.
Frankly, although Inkscape is a vector graphics application, it's general interface model is light years ahead and GIMP should really take note. If you haven't tried it, you should. Inkscape is one very sensibly designed graphics application and is an absolute pleasure to use.
Furthermore, GIMP has bizarre and difficult keybinds in place for the most common operations. SHIFT-CTRL-A (note not the easier CTRL-SHIFT-A) to select nothing, and then depending on what window is in focus, it may simply not take at all. There is also counter-productive persistence in the tool-states. Should you have cropped an image with the crop tool and then click somewhere on the image, the crop tool dialogue will pop up again (very likely and annoyingly *on top* of the to-be-cropped area). Why not just go back to a default pointer tool after a tool operation? What are the chances I'm going to want to crop an image twice instead of do something else with it? This persistence leads to all sorts of back-tracking and I for one have never quite got used to it. There are several other gripes but one line more would qualify as a rant.
If I've spoken wrongly about GIMP, or am missing some fundamentals on it's use, please let me know about it.
Come on, give me better reasons to choose Linux over OS X.
I must be bored. Here goes:
No systemwide package management. It's 2006 and I still can't install software on OSX without having to go to websites, download big *.dmg's producing duplicate libs all over the place because OSX doesn't put sane dynamic linking to practice. Yes, Fink is broken and terrible.
No system-wide upgrades at the click of a button (or via commandline).
It's 2006 and OSX doesn't have virtual desktops out-of-the-box (Desktop Manager which I used instead is rubbish, barely configurable and shareware).
OSX is slower on the same hardware.
OSX has a default terrible bash implementation.
OSX costs per upgrade.
I can't take OSX 'with me' should I need to move across architectures, from machine to machine; Linux allows me to work in a familiar environment across many different computers.
OSX is now proprietary down to the kernel. Should I shockhorror want to fiddle with a kernel optomisation or compile a new kernel module, I'm stuck with Apple's reccommended homogenous configuration. The scientific and film industries will be turning off OSX in droves as we speak due to this.
OSX has an inflexible, click-heavy window management paradigm.
The Finder. Why are my program windows so lost that they need to be 'found'?
You were obviously very unlucky. One thing nearly all Ubuntu newcomers do (and wisely so) is to boot the LiveCD first to find out if their hardware supports Ubuntu before installing it.
Part of Ubuntu's exponential success is due to so many new users being able to easily install and operate an Ubuntu system. These days it's only really enthusiasts and developers that compile software or recompile their kernel. The widescale success of Ubuntu is itself testimony to this (something accreditable to the fine Debian base simultaneously).
Isn't software development with an opensource context already innately 'self-interested', where the supposed 'meritocracy' translates as a selfish need for recognition within a competitive technical arena?
Blur your eyes, the advertistment looks like a packet of cigarettes, with the white "This Will Probably Kill You" warning at the base. Not the best graphic association to push when touting office software, especially given MS Office is already responsible for 1000's of new nervous disorders and facial ticks each year.
Furthermore, why push FSF rhetoric in an advertisement, "Free software for a Free People"? Tell Joe Clickit why OpenOffice is better than MS Office, tell him it's free to download, and then provide means for him to find out about what FOSS has to do with 'liberation' in a broader sense.
It would be greatly appreciated by the Billions of us that don't live there if you Americans would do something about your current government.
America increasingly represents the antithesis of 'freedom' and personal liberty especially for those in other countries. They are innovators in the strategic reduction of civil rights, at home and elsewhere. Freedom is not a brand, it's a right and you don't have to be American to have it FFS.
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For the umpteenth time Apple don't "make hardware" any more than IBM make Lenovo laptops and call them Thinkpads. Taiwanese companies Quanta Computing and Asustek "make" the Macbooks just as they did the Powerbooks and iBooks before that. These two companies got the Apple contract because of low production margins resulting from them already making half the worlds notebooks. Look it up and learn what O.E.M means. Apple is closer to a "value added reseller" than a hardware manufacturer.
If it is to be renamed then why not do it with some reference to the reason. A name like FreeFox or similar would at least maintain symbolic connection to the parent while underscoring that it is a wholly non-proprietary distribution of that parent. 'IceWeasel' sounds directly antagonistic of FireFox itself. If FireFox is hot, then it's alternative must be cold. It itself reads as a childishly extremist 'reaction' to what should otherwise be understood as a wise and considered move, for real and sane reasons.
The sheer lack of foresight amazes me. For years afterward we'll be hearing damaging myths that "FireFox doesn't install on Linux". Newbies coming into IRC to ask how to install FireFox will be pointed to what's later knows as the longest running $TOPIC in history. 'IceWeasel' just adds needless noise for all those millions considering switching to a Linux OS. FireFox is arguably the most important FOSS application for the desktop, if only because of it's notoriety. The name itself is larger than the software it represents. fscking with this reveals new depths of disregard for the adoption of Desktop Linux more generally.
Wallop - The fast way to a real spanking.
What a stupid name. Then again, these days "Absurdly stupid" == "'Edgy'. Exhibits a penchant for the uncanny or unusual. A Likely source of pleasant surprises."
Firstly, given that Linux is still the fastest growing operating system, I'd say it's foolish to _not_ expose kids to the basics of using a Linux OS. The fact that they won't piss themselves with fear at the site of a GNOME desktop in later life is probably to their advantage, if only because they'll have more diverse concept of what constitutes a 'PC'. I think you're being a wee bit black and white - prior experience of alternatives can only make you wiser and more useful in most contexts, workplace and otherwise.
Finally there are vast numbers of Linux users (eg people using the OS) that have very little or no contact with the command line. Those long heady nights trying to tame the third button of your mouse, with vi as your Excalibur, are long since over.
Agreed. I spent some time working with OSX 10.4 recently and found the lack of an ability to upgrade installed software using an update tool like apt was sorely missed.
Having to consciously track versions of non-OSX shipped software yourself - to go to websites to find and install updates on a per-package basis - is too labour intensive for a machine I simply want to get work done on.
Apple will gain market share in the desktop but not at the expense of Linux.
Apple has a significant glass ceiling where wide growth is concerned: do you imagine schools in the third world are going to roll out Apple desktops for tens of millions of students? That whole governments are going to buy iMacs? Extremely unlikely. Apple is a U.S corporation with an OS tied to a single platform. The big growth areas for the desktop, in the sense of mass 'adoption', are just not there for Apple as they don't meet criteria where growth is demanded the most. Apple and Linux are not in the same 'market space', so to speak. Despite both OS's enjoying healthy growth on the desktop in western-world, Linux has bigger fish to fry.
Linux sells itself with every restriction corporations place on people's capacity to do what they want with their own computer. This is the very fortunate 'negative space' Linux is, and will always be, situated within. Force nor 'strategic incorporation' of proprietary software should apply. If something else comes along that gives more of the freedom, quality and wealth of software I experience with Linux, I'll jump, and many others would too.
ESR should take _his_ mono-dimensional zeal off the shelf and lose a little religion. Linux is already an OS used gladly by millions - yes even luddites and artists - and more so day by day. Some have chosen it because it gives them more flexibility, customisability, performance, freedom, $VALUE than other OS's, other's because they simply feel more productive using it.
If you don't appreciate having freedom of movement and fine performance at the level of your personal computing device, or just don't think Linux swings with a pair of Adidas like OSX does, who gives a Flying Balmer.
To say it's soley the torch of nerd idealism these days is entertaining blindness... or opportunistic journalism born of a waning career.
Here are a few valid reasons for moving to lab grown meat.
The maintenance of cows for purposes of eating is the drives a massive proportion of the Earth's deforestation. Ironically, while cows themselves take up a lot of space, it's their food which takes up more, and that food is generally a crop of soya. This land could otherwise be reforested (much of the Brazilian rainforest has been levelled for the purpose of North America's meat markets) and we'd have more air to breathe.
Cow herds reduce the quality of the earth they live on dramatically. This is the source, all over the world, of landslides and polluted waterways
Methane-emitting cow shit is directly attributed to a significant proportion of the ozone layer's decay. Absurd, but true.
Finally, it is not possible to give cows the happy and healthy life you're talking about at the rate the world wishes to consume them. They have to be stuffed into small spaces and pumped with metabolically maddening hormones to be grown up and slaughtered in time for the next checkout sale. Instead adult and child cows are stuffed into trucks, led off those trucks into the factory where they'll be slain, partially stunned with either a knock to the head (or a large electric shock), hooks are often inserted between the tendon and the shin and they're swung up sidedown and their throat is slit. This is something I've seen first hand.
No matter how you look at it, the life of a cow - and all other animals industrialised for eating by Humans - in the 21st century is a very sad one. Eating meat directly funds a hell of alot of misery. Either raise and kill the animal you eat with your own hands (from experience, this changes your perspective on meat and its industrialisation considerably) or simply eat meat grown in a Lab.
The latter is by far the saner.
'Origins' aside, it's mining companies (and venture capitalists with an eye for off-world enterprises) that will be most interested in these findings, lending the idea that they are likely funding some of this research.
While this may sound absurd, it's perhaps worth asking: How much rock do you have to move off the Moon before the Earth starts seeing climatic changes as a result? Any one know of research into this area? Given the blatant denial certain first word countries have evidence in the face of an eroding Ozone layer, let's hope the moon isn't laden with valuable metals, ores and other resources..
No, it does well in the film industry because of 3D performance. Maya on Linux is an industry standard because it simply outperforms it's peers. I know of several people in the scientific community that use Linux for it's 64bit processing power, and Linux's native capacity to scale CPU wise. Apple workstations may be being used as a comfortable workstations in some areas, but certainly not where real high-performance computing is concerned. Apple's poor memory management will need to improve before it's taken seriously as a workstation OS in demanding contexts.
This is the most reliable trajectory to ensure increased dependence on Windows and Windows products, most of all through the technology lock-in that is DirectX. Anyone touting this as the boat that will carry them from the foul shores of Microsoft are clearly out of their dangling minds.
This is bad for OpenGL/SDL/Qt and bad for any platform which relies on these tools for both game and non-game applications; as long as people can author games on the Windows platform and run it in a WINE-like wrapper, they won't consider native releases. OpenGL will get less attention as the market consolidates on DirectX and the quality and feature-set of the code falls behind as a result. It really can, and in fact does, work like that.
DirectX has risen from near nothing in a few short years. MS invested alot of money strategically situating the platform dependent DirectX in opposition to the platform neutral OpenGL on the Windows platform through tools and API development, and to a large degree it has worked. Games are faster made for the Windows platform using these high-level Windows-only API's, and so now many developers consider DirectX on Windows as the only sane context for game development altogether. As a result, DX will continue to rise at the great expense of platform portable tools like OpenGL if it is blindly, yet directly, supported by idiocy like this. Let's not invite a day we have 'DirectX only' on the back of some graphic cards.
I'll say it again. Projects such as Cedega and 'Cider' ensure long-term codepedency with MS, as a technology provider, at the expense of high performing, native games. This simply takes Apple and Linux build targets 'off the map' from the perspective of game development and lets them get on with making great games for Windows - ensuring MS is always that arsehole you call when you're high, dry and have got the shakes.
Dumping Windows for Linux or OSX is only the first step to being free of MS products, the dirty blood runs deeper than that.
What the hell is it with Ubuntu anyway, you might be able to do the same with automatix or easy ubuntu or what not, but freespire makes it LEGAL (at least in the US, in the civilised word software patent don't yet apply)! Only a small proportion of all humans on Earth live in America. For this reason - and the support of a massive Ubuntu userbase - Ubuntu with Automatix/Easy Ubuntu is both a sane and legal option for most.
According to TFA it was an SQL Injection attack.
As much as OSX on a server is a contradiction of terms at the best of times, this wasn't an OS level exploit.
Files might be being downloaded 'illegally' but here in Europe the recording industry is doing better than it ever was. These n-billion files that are being downloaded cannot be counted as a loss, as they wouldn't be bought anyway. They are being downloaded precisely because they are free; an argument for damage here is absurd.
P2P is best thought of as an advanced try-before-you-buy network. For this reason the people that are losing money from P2P are not recording artists, but Marketing Execs that would like to steer our consumption interests and habits, in short to push crap on us we don't want. P2P lifts the standards of consumer choice.
"Artists around the world rejoice", my llama..
Can I export PDF's from MS Word? No.
Does it run on my existing platform? No.
Is MS Word more secure than OO? No.
[...]
Hmm seems I just can't live without Open Office.
Strictly speaking the comparison table on page 2 is incorrect. Opera does have themes, many of them, albeit the browser isn't shipped with them as such.
Yes I do use a 'desktop environment' of sorts, WMII to be precise. On my Ubuntu box (Gnome DE) it is no better. Frankly the idea of moving from workspace to workspace to access individual images (at times I have 10 or 15 open) or to select new tools and change brushes, sounds dizzying and far too management intensive for daily use. I'd probably lose complete track of where everything is after a few hours of work.
The point is to reduce the amount of key-presses to access functions and editable assets, not increase them. Even if you are correct, and spreading out a project over multiple desktops is the way to go, it's a very bad sign that GIMP relies on this to be useful whereas other graphic suites/applications do not. I've used and appreciated multiple workspaces for close to 8 years, and this does not seem like a good application for them. I think the fact still stands, having individual, user managed X windows for each component of an image editing application is madness. Part of a sensible desktop environment is having 'windows' and/or focusable elements grouped by task. GIMP goes in the other direction and as such demands alot from the user.
Disclaimer: I'm a fan of the GIMP and am extremely glad for it's existance.
I've used GIMP for some years and on the odd occassion have used it to do professional 2D work. While it is extremely powerful when used with knowledge, the core developers are a guarded and decidedly stubborn bunch with a penchant for ignoring basic feature requests from users that they feel might somehow 'threaten' their political differentiation against Photoshop. Of course they care very little to admit this overtly apparent and often discussed tendency.
As a result we are still stuck with an insane GUI windowing model whereby all palettes, brushes, dialogues, and main toolbar need to be *managed* as separate windows. This makes GIMP a very click-intensive application to use, and this is something that no RSI-fearing designer worth their weight in pixels would want to dance with.
Is it really such a demoralizing design concession that GIMP adopts the 1 parent window, many-child-window model that nearly every graphical application (including 3D modelers) use? Providing a toggleable full screen option (tricky in X I know) and the ability to quickly define which of your child-windows are visible would boost productivity with the GIMP (for most) a great deal (currently GIMP is really only as productive as Photoshop with a dual-screen setup - a luxury not all have). It would also aid those that want to transition from Photoshop - and there are many, believe it or not.
Frankly, although Inkscape is a vector graphics application, it's general interface model is light years ahead and GIMP should really take note. If you haven't tried it, you should. Inkscape is one very sensibly designed graphics application and is an absolute pleasure to use.
Furthermore, GIMP has bizarre and difficult keybinds in place for the most common operations. SHIFT-CTRL-A (note not the easier CTRL-SHIFT-A) to select nothing, and then depending on what window is in focus, it may simply not take at all. There is also counter-productive persistence in the tool-states. Should you have cropped an image with the crop tool and then click somewhere on the image, the crop tool dialogue will pop up again (very likely and annoyingly *on top* of the to-be-cropped area). Why not just go back to a default pointer tool after a tool operation? What are the chances I'm going to want to crop an image twice instead of do something else with it? This persistence leads to all sorts of back-tracking and I for one have never quite got used to it. There are several other gripes but one line more would qualify as a rant.
If I've spoken wrongly about GIMP, or am missing some fundamentals on it's use, please let me know about it.
No systemwide package management. It's 2006 and I still can't install software on OSX without having to go to websites, download big *.dmg's producing duplicate libs all over the place because OSX doesn't put sane dynamic linking to practice. Yes, Fink is broken and terrible.
No system-wide upgrades at the click of a button (or via commandline).
It's 2006 and OSX doesn't have virtual desktops out-of-the-box (Desktop Manager which I used instead is rubbish, barely configurable and shareware).
OSX is slower on the same hardware.
OSX has a default terrible bash implementation.
OSX costs per upgrade.
I can't take OSX 'with me' should I need to move across architectures, from machine to machine; Linux allows me to work in a familiar environment across many different computers.
OSX is now proprietary down to the kernel. Should I shockhorror want to fiddle with a kernel optomisation or compile a new kernel module, I'm stuck with Apple's reccommended homogenous configuration. The scientific and film industries will be turning off OSX in droves as we speak due to this.
OSX has an inflexible, click-heavy window management paradigm.
The Finder. Why are my program windows so lost that they need to be 'found'?
You were obviously very unlucky. One thing nearly all Ubuntu newcomers do (and wisely so) is to boot the LiveCD first to find out if their hardware supports Ubuntu before installing it.
Part of Ubuntu's exponential success is due to so many new users being able to easily install and operate an Ubuntu system. These days it's only really enthusiasts and developers that compile software or recompile their kernel. The widescale success of Ubuntu is itself testimony to this (something accreditable to the fine Debian base simultaneously).
Isn't software development with an opensource context already innately 'self-interested', where the supposed 'meritocracy' translates as a selfish need for recognition within a competitive technical arena?
Blur your eyes, the advertistment looks like a packet of cigarettes, with the white "This Will Probably Kill You" warning at the base. Not the best graphic association to push when touting office software, especially given MS Office is already responsible for 1000's of new nervous disorders and facial ticks each year.
Furthermore, why push FSF rhetoric in an advertisement, "Free software for a Free People"? Tell Joe Clickit why OpenOffice is better than MS Office, tell him it's free to download, and then provide means for him to find out about what FOSS has to do with 'liberation' in a broader sense.
It seems you're talking about STELARC and that the work you're referring to is this.
It would be greatly appreciated by the Billions of us that don't live there if you Americans would do something about your current government.
America increasingly represents the antithesis of 'freedom' and personal liberty especially for those in other countries. They are innovators in the strategic reduction of civil rights, at home and elsewhere. Freedom is not a brand, it's a right and you don't have to be American to have it FFS.