Surreal: The kind of satirical humor that only a hacker could appreciate is posted to Slashdot in response to an article about how "everybody is becoming a hacker": result: about five people get it.
"Everybody is becoming a hacker"? This, in the face of the ten thousand Slashdot posts I've read from people who complain because EVERYTHING about computers is just too hard to figure out, and the people who adamently insist that they should be expected to use NOTHING but a Windows box running AOL, and the people who didn't even make it to Slashdot, they have to tell me in person that they have never touched a computer and don't care to learn them.
I've tried keeping a "geek blog" going, but have temporarily dropped it, thinking to do it differently next time. Blogs which speak specifically to the geek audience are more difficult to maintain. At least, that was true for me, when I was under the mistaken impression that this meant posting a full, original article on geek topic Foo, or source code for a small program, or review of an OS/window manager/software tool, or game guide, or book report, or other high-level content. Then I discovered that your posts are supposed to be one sentence each, link included.
I don't know what else to say. My eight-year-old daughter uses GIMP with no problems. Nobody taught her, she just figured it out from playing with it. My wife has also toyed with GIMP occasionally, and she's such a technophobe, she was the last person in the house to quit using Windows.
BTW, I've used Photoshop, MGIphotosuite, Corel Draw, MacDraw, xpaint, KPOVmodeler, Blender, and just about every other imaging program out there. I say again: There is NO difference between the buttons and menus and commands of one, and the buttons and menus and commands of another, save functionality. More features = more buttons. Who else but a simpleton would expect otherwise?
Do you expect to be able to talk expansively about every topic, while having a vocabulary of just 50 words? Do you expect to be able to build any structure in the world of architecture with just a hammer and a screw-driver? After seeing some of this mentality, I am becoming convinced that some people do!
GIMP is free. It's developed by people just like you for free. The people who program it don't get paid to do so. If you don't like it, go buy a comparable product that you do like. Re-write it yourself how you like it. Or, best option of all, quit using computers altogether, especially to post your snivel symphony with backing violins about how EVERYTHING is just so damn hard on widdle ol' YOU.
In short, please stop repeating that tired old argument, its not feasible for 99% of the user community for any particular application and it makes you sound like an arrogant prick.
Well, excuse us all to hell! We've seen to it that there's a wonderful avenue available for people who don't want to do their own programming - proprietary software! We have generously left companies like Windows and MacIntosh enough market share that they'll be in place to offer you compiled binaries only without bothering you with all the tiresome code for years to come. Run - don't walk!
I would like to say that I, for one, love the GIMP exactly as it is, and want no changes in the interface design at all. Yes, it is a complicated program. Yes, it is overwhealming for the novice. So is POVray and Blender.
That's because, unlike toys like "Windoze Payntbrush", you can actually DO SOMETHING with it! A lot of functionality necessitates a lot of buttons, or menu options, or configurable widgets. As I harp on again and again, a Stealth Bomber is more powerfull than a tricycle, so when you get into the cockpit of a Stealth Bomber, don't complain because you didn't find a set of rubber-gripped chrome handlebars and a set of plastic pedals to operate it with.
And, as always, I expect I'll be shouted down by the mob. We will have our handlebars and pedals anyway, even if it means chopping a Stealth Bomber down to the functionality of a tricycle. It never occurs to people that if a tool is too difficult for them to use, that probably means that they don't need it - they need to stick to their tricycles and leave the Stealth Bombers alone for those of us who NEED them.
If 90% or more of the world's computer systems ran on any other single OS, it would be just as susceptible and just as targeted as Windows.
A hush falls over the seance. There is a message fro you from the spirit world. It's "...re-e-ea-ad....th-e-e....pre-e-vio-ousssss....p o-o-osssstssssss......."
if some linux desktop flavor were as widely popular as windows, do you honestly think it would be any different with a new wonder worm every year?
*Gr-oa-a-an!!!* Not you again! Don't you *ever* go away?
Windows is only about 20 short years old. Linux is based on Unix, which is much older. And no, back when Unix was the predominant system and Windows wasn't even a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye, virus attacks were almost unheard-of. Security exploits DID happen, but they didn't cream right through the system like they do on Windows systems today. By the way, MacIntosh had it's own share of massive popularity before Windows got rolling, and Mac attacks were few and far between as well.
OK, hypothetically, say the entire planet uses Linux, and 18-year-old hackers get jiggy trying to infect Linux machines. Here's the barriers to that:
(a) Open Source = the solution is in our own hands, instead of waiting helplessly to depend on the skill of a proprietary company which would really rather sell you a new system than fix the one you just bought.
(b) There's some 1000 different flavors of Linux - are you telling me that everybody would use the same kind? No, and seeing how hard it is to get a little video game to be cross-distribution-compatible, I shudder to think what you'd have to go through to do it with a virus. I can hear it now: "The virus only affected Red Hat systems, since it was an.rpm file and no.apt or.tgz release was made."
(c) Ever tried to install a program you *want* on a Linux machine? That can be a hassle, and sometimes even impossible, even running as root. Dependencies, architecture, permissions, conflicts between versions...people like you are always carping about how hard Linux is on your widdle fingers, remember? Hence, that many fewer 18-year-old coders will be able to cope.
Lesse here, what brilliant piece of bait would get a senior executive to click every time? There's so MANY weaknesses in the suit-wearing mentality to exploit, this is SO not a brain-teaser!
(gullibility)
"Security patch from HQ, please install."
(ego-appeal)
"Your induction into the executive hall of fame"
(lust)
"Free nekkid girly picks!"
(greed)
"Our stock just split, see chart for your current 401K status."
But when I think of hardware security, I think of a box I built one time without a hard drive. It just had a CD ROM, from which I would load a Puppy Linux CD, remove it, and leave it running for days at a time with nothing but RAM. If we needed to save a file on it, we used removable media such as USB keydrives. With no writable disks present to infect, with nothing, in fact, but a motherboard, CPU, and a 1-gig DDR, I always wondered how it would fare on a network. But I suppose this is what is meant by 'dumb terminals'.
Arguing about whether men or women are smarter is like arguing whether dwarves or midgets are taller. We're all pretty thick, and debating the validity of infinitessimally minute differences only serves to elicidate that fact.
I'm so glad you feel that AIDS is the same thing as natural selection. Perhaps when your brother dies of it, as mine did, you will remember what you said.
I read. And this does, indeed, cast a dark shadow on the future of that activity.
True, computers in and of themselves are a wonderful information-sharing utility. I have always looked at the internet as one huge interactive library. But the medium has inherent limitations which limit it's effectiveness as a replacement for books.
Computers are great for reading instant messenger blurbs, web pages, and brief newspaper-length articles. But they simply are too clumsy to produce a 1000-page tome with footnotes, bibliography, and an index.
Gone, I fear, will be one of the chief pleasures in my life, which has been to leech college texts for free or cheap. Those of us who aren't thick enough to shell out ten thousand dollars for a piece of paper that says we passed a test and doesn't guarantee us the job we were hoping for, but do not wish to deprive ourselves of a decent education, have been scouring used book stores, flea markets, and libraries for years, educating ourselves to an equivalent of a degree. In the end, job-wise, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference, provided you aren't trying for brain surgeon or constitutional lawyer.
And I have noticed that the usual circle of college friends I make it my business to keep nearby have been drying up on the books. I get fewer and fewer every year!
The Big Brother aspect is simply that a physical paper book is harder to control. When you're finished with it, you can give it away to somebody who didn't pay the Privilege Tax. No, no, can't have that. Make them Ebooks that vanish like a soap bubble when the meter expires. Hope you remembered everything the first time, because there will be no such thing as keeping a reference source around.
The one thing the government can't control yet is the inside of your head, and this may give rise to the forgotten trade of the bard! Don't delay, folks! Become a bard! Pick the book you most want to share with the world, memorize it through your lifetime, and go forth ever after quoting it to people for free!
And let me be the first to say, that when it gets to the actual point of the Goons going around snatching books out of our hands and burning them, if by that time we have not overthrown the system in a bloody insurrection, we will deserve the government we allow ourselves to have.
Windows isn't easy to power-use, it's easy to dummy-use. Big difference.
Dummy use in Linux:
Pick a distro like Mandriva or Ubuntu or Fedora...something that's deliberately set up to be simple. Ask around in a Linux forum if you need help picking a distro. Don't be shy about identifying yourself as being from a Windows-only background. They've led many by the hand, before. Ask to see screenshots of whatever distro you choose, to ensure that it has the GUI you need. By the way, many Linux distros are available in the back of Linux books sold at places like bookstores and computer stores...including "Linux for Dummies".
At the install, pick the options that are equivalent to "Install everything, including the kitchen sink!" At account setup time, pick one root password, one user-name, one user password. Write these down on post-its that you'll stick on your monitor. At desktop options, choose KDE or Gnome.
When you log into this desktop, you'll have a "taskbar" with little pictures on it. Click on pictures until you find a menu. The red-and-white life preserver gets you a "help" browser. The red dinosaur head is the web browser. The icon that looks like the insignia of your chosen distro is the "start menu". GUI text editors are usually here under "editors".
I'm sure just about anybody could get this far in ten days. Beyond that is power-user territory?
I'd like to thank everybody for keeping this discussion civil (for a change, and a OS debate, no less!). I think we've all had something to learn and something to think about. I wish Slashdot discussions were like this more often.
What the hell, are you saying Windows isn't "easy to use" because EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE thing you might want to do with it might take upwards of 10 seconds of investigation? I don't think most people could do ANY of the things on your list on ANY OS without at least some prodding around. You are asking for the Moon.
Nuh-uh. What I *AM* saying: It is unreasonable to expect that *any* operating system can be mastered in ten days flat. Including Windows.
Linux potentially can be the hardest of all, simply because there's no obligation for it to have a GUI, icons, or even a basic notepad-style program or web-browser in the first place.
Um...been about five years since I've seen a Linux distro without these things. *My* usual beef with Linux installs is there's too *much* hand-holding, KDE desktop assumed automatically as default, etc. But I'm weird. Trust me, there are no major Linux releases this year without a GUI, Mozilla/Firefox, Gedit/Kate/OpenOffice, or the equivalent. Plus more whistles and bells and gongs. Even Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux (50 and 60 meg installs, respectively).
If you seriously think man pages (or any Linux documentation for that matter) were written for "dummies", you are beyond help.
Sorry to break it to you, but my first time using Linux, man and info pages were my first documentation exposure. Yes, I committed the utter miracle of *reading* them, patiently, experimenting with each new concept as I read of it. And it took me longwer than ten days, and I'm a lightening-fast study. It also took me longer than ten days to learn everything about Windows. But in any case, these days, all Linux GUI programs have a little manual accessible by clicking the menu labeled "help" (look for the red-and-white life-preserver icon!), just like Mac 'n' Win. Pardon us Unix aliens for not catching up with your superior Earthling technology sooner. We're Neanderthals; we're slow.
OS X....this isn't about OS X. I love OS X. I love Macs. I just prefer not to spend money on them when I can get free PC boxen and convert them to linux.
"How does an installation process work for an application?" That one single issue is probably one of the least coherent across all the linux apps I've used and installed.
Granted, it's easy when you have a program called "install.exe" handy in the main folder of the package you just downloaded. And have things unzipped, of course. I never said "installing programs in Windows is just as hard as in Linux". That, to me, is a strength. Viruses can't just install themselves seamlessly in a single operation.
But I digress from my main point:
If folks want Linux distro's on a greater percentage of desktops,
Not all of us really care. I, for one, am quite happy with what I got. But this is a point of disagreement under Linux: How much do we whack it down to Windows-size, sacrificing Linux-functionality for Windows-simplicity? I think the trend will be to have "user-friendly" distros (where's an Ubuntu user? Field this one, will you?), and "geeks-only" distros (Slackware, my baby!). It's the old "how to make a vehicle with the power of a Stealth bomber and the interface of a tricycle" problem.
don't cry when most folks refuses to use it, or get frustrated trying to learn it.
I'm not crying. I just don't see "Joe user tried to work Linux in ten days and failed, proving Linux is too hard." Some people can't put a computer *together* out of the box in ten days.
AS I said, I expect *some* people would have done all I asked on my list. And much, much, more. Now tell me you learned it all in the first ten days after installing Windows.
Yes - by not installing that POS in the first place.
Real came default with Windows when I had it. I agree that it's loathsome. Equally loathsome are people who insist in releasing video that only Real Player can play. Same reason I hiss at the use of.pdf and.ps files for releasing documentation.
Under IE: Tools -> Internet Options -> Delete Cookies.
I would love to see the output from Linux's "locate anyuser" run on your drive! On my Windows box, cookies lived in about half a dozen different directories, *sigh* I wish I'd kept a list of which ones...anyway, running "Disk Cleanup" and other such tools hardly touched the tip of the iceberg, it took stuff like Norton tools and Lavasoft to really get the muck pried out of the gutters. Maybe some of that's changed...
Why on *EARTH* would you want to do that? It's essential if you want to do any serious multitasking. It's so critical that I have to have it twice as large as it would normally be.
Well, let's just say Linux has *other* ways to handle desktop multi-tasking. Like multiple virtual desktops, accessible by Alt-[F1-F8]! And simply right-clicking on the desktop to get a "start" menu and tasklist, in window managers like Fluxbox and Window Maker, and hide buttons on the panel for desktops like KDE and Gnome...and about a zillion other toys. I got so sick of the endless minimize/maximize chase during my Windows days, that in Linux I'll open my 100th virtual desktop before I'll minimize a single window, no matter how trivial it is. Programs stay *open* until I'm *done* with them...*pant!*-*pant!*-*seethe!*
Anyway, you can hide the taskbar completely with CTRL-ESC ALT-MINUS-C (same sequence with ALT-PLUS-C brings it back, IIRC). Or else the Windows key by itself toggles the start menu. By the way, there's a slew of Windows-key functions: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=490939 .
Some or none or all of these may work with version Foo, upgrade Bar. And of course, we all learned this within ten days of installing windows, from typing "man winkey" at our DOS prompt, right?
Explain to me how you learned to run vi from the man page, go ahead.
Oh, so the person who wrote the vi man page wasted their time? Everybody who has read the vi man page wasted their time? I'm just making an appeal to simple logic, here. Obviously, somebody, somewhere, somewhen, found some use out of man page documentation. Yeah, vi itself happens to be more completely documented in the info page than the man page. The exception that disproves all cases, Ahah! But you're taking the Linux equivalent of DOS's "debug" or "EDLIN" programs and talking like it's true of all Linux editors. Linux has Gedit, Kate, OpenOffice Writer, and a slew of other GUI-functioning text editors that work similar to Windows Word or Notepad, right down to the menu configurations. Note that I do not point to Emacs as an example, though it be my personal favorite!
Slashdot Mirror
Neatly disproving the point!
Same planet. Different worlds.
Oh!
There yah go! That's the spirit. Use what works for you!!!
BTW, I've used Photoshop, MGIphotosuite, Corel Draw, MacDraw, xpaint, KPOVmodeler, Blender, and just about every other imaging program out there. I say again: There is NO difference between the buttons and menus and commands of one, and the buttons and menus and commands of another, save functionality. More features = more buttons. Who else but a simpleton would expect otherwise?
Do you expect to be able to talk expansively about every topic, while having a vocabulary of just 50 words? Do you expect to be able to build any structure in the world of architecture with just a hammer and a screw-driver? After seeing some of this mentality, I am becoming convinced that some people do!
GIMP is free. It's developed by people just like you for free. The people who program it don't get paid to do so. If you don't like it, go buy a comparable product that you do like. Re-write it yourself how you like it. Or, best option of all, quit using computers altogether, especially to post your snivel symphony with backing violins about how EVERYTHING is just so damn hard on widdle ol' YOU.
End of story!
Well, excuse us all to hell! We've seen to it that there's a wonderful avenue available for people who don't want to do their own programming - proprietary software! We have generously left companies like Windows and MacIntosh enough market share that they'll be in place to offer you compiled binaries only without bothering you with all the tiresome code for years to come. Run - don't walk!
That's because, unlike toys like "Windoze Payntbrush", you can actually DO SOMETHING with it! A lot of functionality necessitates a lot of buttons, or menu options, or configurable widgets. As I harp on again and again, a Stealth Bomber is more powerfull than a tricycle, so when you get into the cockpit of a Stealth Bomber, don't complain because you didn't find a set of rubber-gripped chrome handlebars and a set of plastic pedals to operate it with.
And, as always, I expect I'll be shouted down by the mob. We will have our handlebars and pedals anyway, even if it means chopping a Stealth Bomber down to the functionality of a tricycle. It never occurs to people that if a tool is too difficult for them to use, that probably means that they don't need it - they need to stick to their tricycles and leave the Stealth Bombers alone for those of us who NEED them.
A hush falls over the seance. There is a message fro you from the spirit world. It's "...re-e-ea-ad....th-e-e....pre-e-vio-ousssss....p o-o-osssstssssss......."
Parts of it were almost coherent. Not bad, but your bot still needs work in the grammer and punctuation department, google "Markov Chain" for help...
*Gr-oa-a-an!!!* Not you again! Don't you *ever* go away?
Windows is only about 20 short years old. Linux is based on Unix, which is much older. And no, back when Unix was the predominant system and Windows wasn't even a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye, virus attacks were almost unheard-of. Security exploits DID happen, but they didn't cream right through the system like they do on Windows systems today. By the way, MacIntosh had it's own share of massive popularity before Windows got rolling, and Mac attacks were few and far between as well.
OK, hypothetically, say the entire planet uses Linux, and 18-year-old hackers get jiggy trying to infect Linux machines. Here's the barriers to that:
(a) Open Source = the solution is in our own hands, instead of waiting helplessly to depend on the skill of a proprietary company which would really rather sell you a new system than fix the one you just bought. .rpm file and no .apt or .tgz release was made."
(b) There's some 1000 different flavors of Linux - are you telling me that everybody would use the same kind? No, and seeing how hard it is to get a little video game to be cross-distribution-compatible, I shudder to think what you'd have to go through to do it with a virus. I can hear it now: "The virus only affected Red Hat systems, since it was an
(c) Ever tried to install a program you *want* on a Linux machine? That can be a hassle, and sometimes even impossible, even running as root. Dependencies, architecture, permissions, conflicts between versions...people like you are always carping about how hard Linux is on your widdle fingers, remember? Hence, that many fewer 18-year-old coders will be able to cope.
(gullibility)
"Security patch from HQ, please install."
(ego-appeal)
"Your induction into the executive hall of fame"
(lust)
"Free nekkid girly picks!"
(greed)
"Our stock just split, see chart for your current 401K status."
The list goes on and on...
Hee hee ! Haw ! It worked on me, I switched to Linux! Damn, I've been played!
But when I think of hardware security, I think of a box I built one time without a hard drive. It just had a CD ROM, from which I would load a Puppy Linux CD, remove it, and leave it running for days at a time with nothing but RAM. If we needed to save a file on it, we used removable media such as USB keydrives. With no writable disks present to infect, with nothing, in fact, but a motherboard, CPU, and a 1-gig DDR, I always wondered how it would fare on a network. But I suppose this is what is meant by 'dumb terminals'.
I'm not even pretending I spell-checked this.
Advice? Quit and go get professional mental help; you are far too bent to have a job!
Respect...a boss who knows anything...what perversion!!!!
I'm so glad you feel that AIDS is the same thing as natural selection. Perhaps when your brother dies of it, as mine did, you will remember what you said.
The AIDS epidemic is still going strong after more than a decade.
True, computers in and of themselves are a wonderful information-sharing utility. I have always looked at the internet as one huge interactive library. But the medium has inherent limitations which limit it's effectiveness as a replacement for books.
Computers are great for reading instant messenger blurbs, web pages, and brief newspaper-length articles. But they simply are too clumsy to produce a 1000-page tome with footnotes, bibliography, and an index.
Gone, I fear, will be one of the chief pleasures in my life, which has been to leech college texts for free or cheap. Those of us who aren't thick enough to shell out ten thousand dollars for a piece of paper that says we passed a test and doesn't guarantee us the job we were hoping for, but do not wish to deprive ourselves of a decent education, have been scouring used book stores, flea markets, and libraries for years, educating ourselves to an equivalent of a degree. In the end, job-wise, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference, provided you aren't trying for brain surgeon or constitutional lawyer.
And I have noticed that the usual circle of college friends I make it my business to keep nearby have been drying up on the books. I get fewer and fewer every year!
The Big Brother aspect is simply that a physical paper book is harder to control. When you're finished with it, you can give it away to somebody who didn't pay the Privilege Tax. No, no, can't have that. Make them Ebooks that vanish like a soap bubble when the meter expires. Hope you remembered everything the first time, because there will be no such thing as keeping a reference source around.
The one thing the government can't control yet is the inside of your head, and this may give rise to the forgotten trade of the bard! Don't delay, folks! Become a bard! Pick the book you most want to share with the world, memorize it through your lifetime, and go forth ever after quoting it to people for free!
And let me be the first to say, that when it gets to the actual point of the Goons going around snatching books out of our hands and burning them, if by that time we have not overthrown the system in a bloody insurrection, we will deserve the government we allow ourselves to have.
Thine wisdom shines as a beacon in the night.
Dummy use in Linux:
Pick a distro like Mandriva or Ubuntu or Fedora...something that's deliberately set up to be simple. Ask around in a Linux forum if you need help picking a distro. Don't be shy about identifying yourself as being from a Windows-only background. They've led many by the hand, before. Ask to see screenshots of whatever distro you choose, to ensure that it has the GUI you need. By the way, many Linux distros are available in the back of Linux books sold at places like bookstores and computer stores...including "Linux for Dummies".
At the install, pick the options that are equivalent to "Install everything, including the kitchen sink!" At account setup time, pick one root password, one user-name, one user password. Write these down on post-its that you'll stick on your monitor. At desktop options, choose KDE or Gnome.
When you log into this desktop, you'll have a "taskbar" with little pictures on it. Click on pictures until you find a menu. The red-and-white life preserver gets you a "help" browser. The red dinosaur head is the web browser. The icon that looks like the insignia of your chosen distro is the "start menu". GUI text editors are usually here under "editors".
I'm sure just about anybody could get this far in ten days. Beyond that is power-user territory?
I'd like to thank everybody for keeping this discussion civil (for a change, and a OS debate, no less!). I think we've all had something to learn and something to think about. I wish Slashdot discussions were like this more often.
Nuh-uh. What I *AM* saying: It is unreasonable to expect that *any* operating system can be mastered in ten days flat. Including Windows.
Linux potentially can be the hardest of all, simply because there's no obligation for it to have a GUI, icons, or even a basic notepad-style program or web-browser in the first place.
Um...been about five years since I've seen a Linux distro without these things. *My* usual beef with Linux installs is there's too *much* hand-holding, KDE desktop assumed automatically as default, etc. But I'm weird. Trust me, there are no major Linux releases this year without a GUI, Mozilla/Firefox, Gedit/Kate/OpenOffice, or the equivalent. Plus more whistles and bells and gongs. Even Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux (50 and 60 meg installs, respectively).
If you seriously think man pages (or any Linux documentation for that matter) were written for "dummies", you are beyond help.
Sorry to break it to you, but my first time using Linux, man and info pages were my first documentation exposure. Yes, I committed the utter miracle of *reading* them, patiently, experimenting with each new concept as I read of it. And it took me longwer than ten days, and I'm a lightening-fast study. It also took me longer than ten days to learn everything about Windows. But in any case, these days, all Linux GUI programs have a little manual accessible by clicking the menu labeled "help" (look for the red-and-white life-preserver icon!), just like Mac 'n' Win. Pardon us Unix aliens for not catching up with your superior Earthling technology sooner. We're Neanderthals; we're slow.
OS X....this isn't about OS X. I love OS X. I love Macs. I just prefer not to spend money on them when I can get free PC boxen and convert them to linux.
and next...
Granted, it's easy when you have a program called "install.exe" handy in the main folder of the package you just downloaded. And have things unzipped, of course. I never said "installing programs in Windows is just as hard as in Linux". That, to me, is a strength. Viruses can't just install themselves seamlessly in a single operation.
But I digress from my main point:
If folks want Linux distro's on a greater percentage of desktops,
Not all of us really care. I, for one, am quite happy with what I got. But this is a point of disagreement under Linux: How much do we whack it down to Windows-size, sacrificing Linux-functionality for Windows-simplicity? I think the trend will be to have "user-friendly" distros (where's an Ubuntu user? Field this one, will you?), and "geeks-only" distros (Slackware, my baby!). It's the old "how to make a vehicle with the power of a Stealth bomber and the interface of a tricycle" problem.
don't cry when most folks refuses to use it, or get frustrated trying to learn it.
I'm not crying. I just don't see "Joe user tried to work Linux in ten days and failed, proving Linux is too hard." Some people can't put a computer *together* out of the box in ten days.
Yes - by not installing that POS in the first place.
Real came default with Windows when I had it. I agree that it's loathsome. Equally loathsome are people who insist in releasing video that only Real Player can play. Same reason I hiss at the use of .pdf and .ps files for releasing documentation.
Under IE: Tools -> Internet Options -> Delete Cookies.
I would love to see the output from Linux's "locate anyuser" run on your drive! On my Windows box, cookies lived in about half a dozen different directories, *sigh* I wish I'd kept a list of which ones...anyway, running "Disk Cleanup" and other such tools hardly touched the tip of the iceberg, it took stuff like Norton tools and Lavasoft to really get the muck pried out of the gutters. Maybe some of that's changed...
Why on *EARTH* would you want to do that? It's essential if you want to do any serious multitasking. It's so critical that I have to have it twice as large as it would normally be.
Well, let's just say Linux has *other* ways to handle desktop multi-tasking. Like multiple virtual desktops, accessible by Alt-[F1-F8]! And simply right-clicking on the desktop to get a "start" menu and tasklist, in window managers like Fluxbox and Window Maker, and hide buttons on the panel for desktops like KDE and Gnome...and about a zillion other toys. I got so sick of the endless minimize/maximize chase during my Windows days, that in Linux I'll open my 100th virtual desktop before I'll minimize a single window, no matter how trivial it is. Programs stay *open* until I'm *done* with them...*pant!*-*pant!*-*seethe!*
Anyway, you can hide the taskbar completely with CTRL-ESC ALT-MINUS-C (same sequence with ALT-PLUS-C brings it back, IIRC). Or else the Windows key by itself toggles the start menu. By the way, there's a slew of Windows-key functions: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=490939 .
Some or none or all of these may work with version Foo, upgrade Bar. And of course, we all learned this within ten days of installing windows, from typing "man winkey" at our DOS prompt, right?
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Oh, so the person who wrote the vi man page wasted their time? Everybody who has read the vi man page wasted their time? I'm just making an appeal to simple logic, here. Obviously, somebody, somewhere, somewhen, found some use out of man page documentation. Yeah, vi itself happens to be more completely documented in the info page than the man page. The exception that disproves all cases, Ahah! But you're taking the Linux equivalent of DOS's "debug" or "EDLIN" programs and talking like it's true of all Linux editors. Linux has Gedit, Kate, OpenOffice Writer, and a slew of other GUI-functioning text editors that work similar to Windows Word or Notepad, right down to the menu configurations. Note that I do not point to Emacs as an example, though it be my personal favorite!
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And what does it say about an operating system, that it would inspire such worship?