This is somewhat like saying "Hey, I wanna be able
to eat, drink and have fun, I need the money,
and I don't care what those strange
powder-filled small metal pellets I am manufacturing
in the steel company are for. And anyway, we
have much better parties, AND more women, as you
and your alternative way of living have."
Yes! I know many users are like that. I know many
just don't care. For all I care they can rot in
the same hell as MS will, if they had their
own world to destroy.
But it's our world, and just like frankly I
don't give a damn about some weird insects in the
rain forest, I realize that it (and them) are a
vital resource for our future on this
planet and so I advocate campaigns whose goal it
is to do something.
(Read 'Brave New World' if you can. I think it comes
quite close to what companies like Microsoft dream of:
Everybody is happy, because if someone complains, he is
just pumped full of drugs and locked into a room until
he behaves 'compliant' again.)
"The problem is not being able to download an app and install it like *indows."
For those that don't own SusE (or don't like YaST2):
KPackage does this. click on a RPM, kpackage pops up with a description,
click on "Install", it asks for the root password and installs the package.
Same for debian. It also provides a way to browse
installed, non-installed (available) packages, and
updated packages. You can install via net and locally.
The only thing KPackage misses is two things, actually:
"Close all applications before you install this."
"Restart your computer for the changes to take affect."
"In Germany, you can't advertise your superior product by contrasting it to your competition's demonstrably inferior one."
One: "inferior" is always in the eye of the beholder.
Two: You were not allowed to say names in advertising, which makes sense
to me when I see some foreign (eg. USA) ads. You can say "our product can do this and that". You can say "... and most of our competition cannot!". You can not say "... and Fooware, Inc cannot!". And you wouldn't want to do it anyway because once this
gets broadcasted, Fooware will put the feature in and then sue you for slander(?).
"as it opens up anyone publishing anything on a web-site (and also Usenet) in America to the more restrictive domestic laws of other countries"
This should read "as it opens up anyone publishing anything on a web-site (and also Usenet) to the more restrictive domestic laws of America". See DMCA for example (USA only).
Sigh. Why do so many Americans just blindly assume everyone else is behind. Yes, there are countries for which this is true. But there are also many for which the reverse is true.
So, to be more specific you could kill the "in America" in the sentence above and would even be more true: Also web pages on other countries could be subjected to more restrictive laws in again other countries.
As for the common denominator desktop, do not underestimate the power of Office. A platform can not hope to succeed in the commercial desktop space without Office.
Yeah, you need to have an office to be able to work. I don't know why you capitalized this
though.
But you also need a productivity software package (word processor, etc) like
Staroffice or Lotus Wordperfect Office for Linux, The long term goal is not
to gag yourselves with proprietary file formats so that you are _able_ to switch
if you _want_ to.
I heard Microsoft makes a single-platform, single-proprietary-file-format
office suite as well, which doesn't fulfill this requirement.
And because Linux's desktop usability is getting better faster than Microsoft is thinking of new ways to screw its customers (which is saying a lot).
"However, I use exclusivly Win32 on the desktop. I have a digital studio box that uses Me, and will soon be upgrading that to XP."
So you seem to like the fact that a company with a terrible security and honesty track record has control over every aspect of your data, and even says so in the EULA. Well, that's your choice. Microsoft reserves the right to deactivate (or rather "un-activate") your WXP any time they like, without having to state reasons.
They have no FUCKING business on my computer after I paid the license fee. If you don't care, well... it's your choice.
"For my needs Win32 works helluva well? on the desktop. (Not to mention that I like to play games)."
In the office?
"Show of hands, how many of you have parents and grandparents could go to work tomorrow and use *nix without a hitch instead of Win32?"
Loser argument. You've never seen a real computer novice attempt the first steps. I have, I have done some computer courses e.g. for teachers and parents, and believe me, the kind of problems they have have nothing to do with the operating system. Absolutely nothing. Your grandparents will more likely have problems with hand control (how fast is a double-click?) and precision (ever seen a novice try to work with this ergonomic desaster called 'mouse'?) than with "how do I set up USB?" (what's that?).
Having said that, I have parents that tried two years to work with Windows and after they had the second big system crash and had to reinstall everything, they (*NOT* I!) wanted Linux (because they'd seen it in my office). THEY installed it (SuSE 7.3) and for them, it works perfectly. Office productivity, scheduling, networking, E-Mail, internet apps and so on. They liked especially that they didn't need to re-install 10001 drivers and utilities after installing Linux (Windows needed additional USB drivers, printer drivers, TV card drivers, sound drivers, graphic drivers, Acrobat Reader, MP3 player, shall I go on?)
"I'd venture to guess that 99% of *windows* users never figure out *it's* features"
So? Is that a reason to take them out? This is one of the ideas that seem to come only from Microsoft users. "Almost nobody uses that feature anyway, so let's disable it!" If the feature doesn't disturb the non-knowing people (and doesn't hurt performance or stability or whatever), where's the problem?
WHY oh WHY does Windows think in order to be beginner-friendly, it has to be anti-expert?
"The file structure on win32 is a mystery to these workers."
That's the beauty of Unix systems. the ONLY place where you can 'lose' documents is your home directory. no more searching for office documents in windows system folder, the root directory, other 'drives' (what's that? Letters? why can't I put the new drive in a directory where the additional space is needed?) or wherever.
Oh yes: no more being afraid of accidentally deleting system files or clicking on the wrong icon, the premier fear of the computer novice. "You can't break anything, so keep trying.".
"It all boils down to this: If I gave my mother a Porche 911 Twin Turbo tomorrow, I know that she would drive it to work every day exactly the same as she drives her Subaru Outback station wagon. It's only certain people that will take advantage of the extra power. This analogy isn't less applicable to computers, it's MORE applicable."
And if the Porsche were free and the Outback would cost you big cash (and only allow to run on 'licensed' roads)? Would you still buy the Outback "because she'll never use the extra power"?
"The point? Win32 is easier than *nix."
This can not be generalized. I've seen Windows installations that were a HELL of a lot harder to use than some Linux desktops.
It all boils down to "can you ask your friend/neighbour/... to give you a hand if things break": If your neighbour uses Linux, use Linux.
It doesn't matter to the users you are talking about, whether Windows 2000 is missing a DLL and spitting error messages, or if Linux wants to be fscked: Those users will want external help. And if they find the right kind of help, they will stay happy - with Linux or with Windows.
If you want 100% compatability, you have not only to emulate all features of Word, you have to emulate all bugs of Word, too. And it doesn't stop there. You have to emulate the whole Win32, OLE, DDE, and so on APIs because Word uses that stuff to do embedding objects in another.
In short, once you have done all this, you have Word. It is identical in behaviour and file formats in every way - so it is the original. And where are you then? Being sued by Microsoft under the DMCA for sure. (You cracked the 'encryption' of the MS Word format and used a 'circumvention device' (Staroffice for example) to get at the copyrighted data.)
Solution: Don't use those formats. It's that simple. Default to something else - XML, RTF, HTML, whatever.
You will never be the first by imitation.
Re: "guaranteed to have a driver available"
on
Windows XP Embedded
·
· Score: 2
"you may even support PCMCIA or compactflash. XP has major advantages in that space since you are guaranteed to have a driver available."
Yeah, right. Who guarantees this? I want it in writing.
And then I want a driver for my PCMCIA network card which is neither supported with Windows 98, nor with 2000, nor with XP. It is, though, under Linux.
When did Microsoft ever guarantee anything? They say in their own EULA that their OS is unfit for 'mission critical' applications, and with the last couple months, most e-mail users and web server admins knew what itreally meant not to be able to properly fix your machine, no matter how much support contracts you had.
"People don't seem to understand that the value of a 3 year old PC is $150 and so there is no particular reason why Microsoft should limit a $100/$200 O/S so that it can run under the constraints of that machine."
no, You don't understand. People don't understand why they should buy a machine whose cost is 50% the software it runs. They don't understand why (to take your example) a simple MP3 player would need hundreds of MB of of hard disk just to drive an operating system, and the manufacturer wouldn't understand why they wouldn't be able to modify the OS to their own taste, but have to rely on the company to provide what is supposedly best for them. And I personally don't believe that anybody can strip down XP to a level that makes it run satisfactorily on a 386 class CPU from a 4MB flash ROM that needs close to no electrical power, when the application this system is supposed to run doesn't need Gigahertz and Gigabytes.
"I don't expect any traditional UNIX kernel to do well there, the UNIX architecture was never designed for and is simply not up to RT tasks. Thats why the RT Linux varieties have major mods to the internals to support features such as guaranteed scheduling etc."
Windows "wasn't originally designed to be" multi-tasking, multi-user, not to mention even being network capable, either. And I don't think you have actually seen RTLinux yet - or MS have achieved something MUCH better than their various embedded forks of Windows since I last checked.
My point is that RTLinux is making headway fast, and I don't hear much about Windows in the embedded market. And for this, there must be a reason.
"Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet-bloc nations?"
"A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, the screenwriter finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer."
Actually, I don't care much about the Russians searching my computers. what I care more about is that American authorities will break in here, violate basic privacy rights (seems normal for the USA to do that) and lock me up before they realize that all the MP3s on my hard disk are my own band recordings.
(Russians wouldn't know what MP3s are anyway.;)
But this article at law.com seems (to me) very typical for the USA. They picture European countries as 'the evil ones', while assuming that we would have absolutely no problems with American authorities playing king kong on our private premises.
The USA even just blindy assumes it's OK to apply their laws to deeds that were done on other continents months ago, with no connection whatsoever to the USA legislation.
This is just very few people in the USA that are causing this 'anti-Americanism' among many European countries. These need to get real. They need to realize there are more than 51 states in the world, and that we do have electricity and TVs. (OK, that was exaggerated, but you get the point.)
Because then Microsoft would know where to attack. Let them stay busy stomping on ants. So far, they've got only a few foggy ideas about where and who to attack, and they still don't understand the idea behind this all (attacking Linux will not help them, if Linux is at some point seriously weakened perhaps FreeBSD, or one of the other free systems will take over).
But why the hell should we point to Linux supporters so that Microsoft KNOWS where to attack?
"Even from the user's point of view the inconvenience of registering..."
Well, that is one of the inconveniences something like Passport was supposed to help. (I'm saying something like because I certainly won't trust my data to any company with a security record like Microsoft's).
Yes, you'll have to register. Just like you register on many web sites now. Slashdot for example. So even without a central login system, there's not really any additional effort required.
"Then you have the additional issue of whether the page site is viewable with your particular configuration of browser, monitor, graphics card and OS."
Exactly. And that is why more work needs to be put in many sites. For my hobby sites, I don't really care if IE6 users choke on my HTML or if a little Javascript could make the site more comfortable. For a site where I need customers, I work really hard so that even Netscape 4.x users will have the full benefit. So, a subscribed site will be expected to carry a little more 'polish' than your average hobby site.
Try me. Go to hitchhikers.de and see if you can find a non-buggy, relatively common browser which doesn't display the page correctly. This is a commercial project (not subscription based however) and so I pay attention to the visitor statistics: 50% IE, 40% Netscape (4 and 6), 5% Konqueror, and every browser that is above 1% will work.
No, not the penny per page. I claim it will be too expensive (complicated, etc) to manage. And there will be endless quarrels about what to call 'a page' (what about frame sets, reloads, forwarding, redirection, pop-ups, etc etc etc?).
What I would prefer is a flat-rate kind of model for web sites, like kuro5hin uses. You pay five Euro a month and can surf the site as much as you want, without banners. Web masters or companies decide what their site is worth and you get a login id or something which identifies you.
I would pay five Euro a month for some of the sites I view regularly. And I'm considering moving some of the bigger sites I maintain to such a model, because
they provide a real service to users (i.e. are not just "here's my home page" stuff)
they cost quite some money (EUR 300/month approximately for the server and bandwidth alone)
they take away lot of my time.
The trouble is that this has to happen everywhere, if people are supposed to accept it. It worked with auction sites (Ricardo, QXL, Ebay) so it will probably work with other sites.
Remember, though - "penny per page" is FAR too complicated.
It's an end-user desktop Linux distribution. That is, it is not much more than a very, very bare bones Debian Linux (slink) setup, with a modified and (well) customized KDE desktop. If it can't start KDE it boots into 'safe mode' (twm). By default, there is no console login except for a sulogin on console 2 (console 1 only shows a textbox saying "Please press Alt-F7").
After you install it (and there's not much more to installing than choosing whether to overwrite Windows or not) you get a default desktop with a web browser, an email client, a small office suite (Wordperfect) and a couple assorted (graphical) tools.
Just about the same you get with a default install of Windows 9x.
I.e. *NOTHING* in respect to tools, network stuff, programming languages, etc. The whole install is about 300-400MB. Hell, the first versions of Wordperfect wouldn't even install because xlib was missing.
But the 'average user' wants to install 10000 additional tools after installing the OS. Apparently. They don't want the OS installation to span 1-2 GB, but already include almost every kind of software you will ever need.
If that's what you want, use Corel Linux. It's "Linux for Dummies".
One thing I've grown to love about the Gnome/GTK+ file selection dialog (no matter how ugly it is) is that I can use tab completion to specify a full path very quickly
Have you ever right-clicked on the file name input widget? It says right there: "Completion: (none, manual, menu, automatic, short automatic)"
This goes for EVERY input widget that accepts URLs. Not only for file dialogs. KDE rocks.:-)
The result? They hated it, and productivity went down fast... as the Linux newbies got stuck trying to figure out why the KDE/Gnome desktops were so illogical.
I.e. they didn't want to learn some new concepts because they (perhaps unconsciously) wanted to prove their older system was better, no matter what the 'techies' say.
People would hit the reset button when X died or crashed...
I don't know why X died or crashed on yo so often, but
what does Windows do when you hit the reset button so often - do your users accept SCANDISK + data loss?
why didn't you use a journaling FS?
why didn't you educate your users about C-A-Backspace? Is that becaus they didn't want to be educated?
Today... There are crashes and annoyances on the Windows side but at least it's usable. Linux simply isn't up to the task yet
What you perhaps should have done is provide your users with thin clients which they can reset and reboot all they want (if they want), but which would never damage any file systems or data. the City of Largo did this (see dot.kde.org report) and they are perfectly happy. The users. Not (only) the 'techies'.
But nobody can force a new system down the throat of users who a) don't want it, b) think they still have a choice, c) think their opinion is more important / correct / better /..., and d) want the 'I told you so' effect to go down on you. (Try giving me Windows. It's not gonna work.)
... but professionals and those writing formal papers need to steer clear of this sort of propaganda...
Whats propaganda here? They are telling the truth. Those viruses only propagate and damage Microsoft systems. They are there because Microsoft systems are so vulnerable. If it weren't for IIS, Windows 2000 etc. those worms wouldn't exist. (And don't "but others would" me - I don't see any reason why Unices, Apache, etc. would be unsafer without Windows.)
Tell the truth. Don't hide behind words.
That's a journalist's job, isn't it? And anyway, now with Microsoft distributing reports that claim Apache is also vulnerable, citing relatively harmless directory listing bugs from 1999, why should we not try to educate the public?
... seems not to be that there are so many unmaintained projects, but that there are so many in the first place.
But I wouldn't call this a problem. Say 0.1% of all opened projects on Sourceforge (just as an example) will really become mature, widely used, big open source community projects. Aren't those 0.1% worth all the effort? Aren't those 0.1% worth putting up with thousands of dead projects because the developers didn't have time or weren't stubborn enough to carry it out? Would you rather have to certify yourself and prove your product's quality before you can post it on the 'net?
I myself started four OSS projects (one of them a community web site actually) with several people, and three of them are unmaintained ATM because I simply don't have the time to continue them. That doesn't mean they rot, though.
So, to summarize, I would LOVE to have 1000 closed, elitist, non-maintained projects floating round the Web - if that's what it takes to produce the one single genius project that changes our world. See Samba, Perl, GCC, Apache, or whatever you like...
I have tried it. I started StarOffice REMOTELY on my home machine from a university pool (on a HP/UX machine with 32MB RAM, that could just barely endure CDE). My home machine is in a dorm that is connected with 2MBit/s that is shared by 400 other people.
It was useable. Sure, you couldn't drag full screen images around but I could scroll down my text just as fast as I could locally. If you switched off the 'show content in moving windows' feature you wouldn't have known the difference.
I even started Win4Lin (www.netraverse.com) remotely once in fullscreen to shock our HP/UX admin. Worked as well (both;-). Strangely, running Netscape on Win4Lin remotely over a shared 2 MBit/s line was more responsive than running a remote Netscape/Linux natively. I don't know what caused this.
But the fact is that you don't even need the full 10MBit to run a simple office application. Most of the time anyway.
This is just a rumour, so get your grain of salt here.
I heard the BBC (yes, the UK one) is aiming to use OpenDivX and OGG Vorbis as their primary streaming formats some time in the future. They run Linux on most of their hardware anyway, had some quarrels with Microsoft because they refused to support Windows 2000 (with their media server) when running under VMware or something, weren't allowed to link Realplayer Plugins directly from their page by Real.com - so that's the next option.
I'd really like to know more about this, if anyone has some more insider knowledge please reply.
"Most human beings on the face of the earth are not technically minded and DO NOT WANT to understand the details of how the tools they use work."
Right. They only have to understand how to use them, and that includes understanding possible consequences of using them incorrectly.
Morale: "Messer, Schere, Gabel, Licht, ist für kleine Kinder nicht." Don't give someone who does not know how to use it, a tool that could become hazardous.
Just as an example: Today's internet is swamped by users who want to send e-mail "cuz its c00l" but probably don't know what an attachment is. They don't need to know - as long as their email client does not support attachments.. As soon as they get the possibility to send attachments, they must learn
how to send and receive them (of course)
how not to trust them
why not to send 20MB files to unsuspecting modem users (what's a modem?)
why not to send binary files (what are those?) to Usenet newsgroups (what are those?)
etc.
You don't give a 15-year old a 200mph racing car just because "everyone has one". Similarly, you don't give someone without training a gun. (Yes, I know it's different in the US. Does that make me wrong?)
Use the tool that do the job. And make sure the user is educated. Simple tool: simple education. Powerful, complex tool - detailed education. Simple as that.
(Yes, I know I'm dreaming. Please reply to slashdot at jensbenecke dot de if you are interested in serious discussion. I might miss you here.)
Quoting Linus' favorite analogy: What do you think is easier, latin characters or pharao symbols?
Latin chars have NOTHING in common with their meaning. They are in NO way "self-explanatory", not even close. And still we find them easier because they require little basic learning to achieve great flexibility.
A complex software product must have an interface that makes it efficient to use. If it isn't self explanatory, it doesn't matter much, you'll have to learn anyway. My experience is that many tools that do not follow the "usual" way of manipulation become more efficient, faster and easier to use - after you grasped the philosophy behind.
Examples:
bash (no visual presentation, no icons)
vim (different editing modes, keybindings)
Gimp, Photoshop & Co. (yes, you need to learn here too)
and so on.
Of course, there are the programs that only perform very simple tasks and are simply horrendously difficult to use. But most apps that do not use the UI interface standards have a reason.
What I *do* with my copied files might be illegal (if I share them, which I don't), but I don't think you can easily distinguish between the physical act of making a backup copy of something, and making a backup copy you intend to distribute
Exactly! And that is why you will simply not be able to do many legal things in the future, if the industry goes the RIAA/MPAA/SDMI/... way. Look: You are legally permitted to make VCR copies as many as you want. But - without extra effort - you cannot. Why? Because of Macrovision. You can legally buy a DVD, and legally buy a DVD Player, and the player will refuse to play your DVD, because it thinks that you might be in the wrong country. My MD player refuses to copy my own recordings digitally, because by allowing digital copies there is the slight possiblity of maybe me committing a sinister crime (i.e. distributing copyrighted music)!
You would be perfectly legal if you could copy your CDs in the future, only you cannot. That is what "they" want, and if the industry complies, in 5 years CDs will be obsolete. What can be done with stupid laws (DMCA) will be done that way, and where they cannot castrate your basic human rights (freedom of speech for example) the industry will simply take away the technical means for exercising them, and sue every company who doesn't comply.
Look at this article for details about what's wrong with copy protection.
Remember: CDs are just about the only digital Hi-Fi media left that do not have some form of copy protection! They must be destroyed, because every CD owner is a potential criminal!
Napster does NOT "give away something you should be paying for". They do NOT provide MP3s. Yes, I agree that most people see it that way but I haven't seen a single server providing MP3s that is operated by Napster.
What they do is provide peer to peer networking for their customers. What you use that for is your problem. If 90% of Napsters customers use it to trade illegal warez (and I do understand that musicians want to be paid for their work), that's their customers' problem, isn't it?
(I still don't understand why the RIAA doesn't encourage the police to shut down all supermarkets. It would only be logical, because most of then sell e.g. kitchen knives. And I don't know if you realized that, but you can commit illegal, even brutal acts with kitchen knives. Just as you can commit illegal acts when you use the Napster network.)
... about comparing Ghandi to Linus, he will be shot. By Alan Cox.
Probably after a debate about some unimportant VM kernel programming detail, or whether to incorporate a different boot logo into the kernel, or something.
Only that won't hinder the movement. Please don't start another discussion about "what if Linus's plane crashes". There are at least 100 people who could and would take his place if he should become "unavailable" one way or another (which I certainly don't hope).
That's the advantage of believing in an idea, not (primarily) a person.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes! I know many users are like that. I know many just don't care. For all I care they can rot in the same hell as MS will, if they had their own world to destroy.
But it's our world, and just like frankly I don't give a damn about some weird insects in the rain forest, I realize that it (and them) are a vital resource for our future on this planet and so I advocate campaigns whose goal it is to do something.
(Read 'Brave New World' if you can. I think it comes quite close to what companies like Microsoft dream of: Everybody is happy, because if someone complains, he is just pumped full of drugs and locked into a room until he behaves 'compliant' again.)
For those that don't own SusE (or don't like YaST2): KPackage does this. click on a RPM, kpackage pops up with a description, click on "Install", it asks for the root password and installs the package.
Same for debian. It also provides a way to browse installed, non-installed (available) packages, and updated packages. You can install via net and locally.
The only thing KPackage misses is two things, actually:
And I can live without those.
One: "inferior" is always in the eye of the beholder.
Two: You were not allowed to say names in advertising, which makes sense to me when I see some foreign (eg. USA) ads. You can say "our product can do this and that". You can say "... and most of our competition cannot!". You can not say "... and Fooware, Inc cannot!". And you wouldn't want to do it anyway because once this gets broadcasted, Fooware will put the feature in and then sue you for slander(?).
And I think this makes a lot of sense.
This should read "as it opens up anyone publishing anything on a web-site (and also Usenet) to the more restrictive domestic laws of America". See DMCA for example (USA only).
Sigh. Why do so many Americans just blindly assume everyone else is behind. Yes, there are countries for which this is true. But there are also many for which the reverse is true.
So, to be more specific you could kill the "in America" in the sentence above and would even be more true: Also web pages on other countries could be subjected to more restrictive laws in again other countries.
Right? Yeah, I'll stop nitpicking now.
Yeah, you need to have an office to be able to work. I don't know why you capitalized this though.
But you also need a productivity software package (word processor, etc) like Staroffice or Lotus Wordperfect Office for Linux, The long term goal is not to gag yourselves with proprietary file formats so that you are _able_ to switch if you _want_ to.
I heard Microsoft makes a single-platform, single-proprietary-file-format office suite as well, which doesn't fulfill this requirement.
Because many people are fed up with Microsoft's politics.
And because Linux's desktop usability is getting better faster than Microsoft is thinking of new ways to screw its customers (which is saying a lot).
"However, I use exclusivly Win32 on the desktop. I have a digital studio box that uses Me, and will soon be upgrading that to XP."
So you seem to like the fact that a company with a terrible security and honesty track record has control over every aspect of your data, and even says so in the EULA. Well, that's your choice. Microsoft reserves the right to deactivate (or rather "un-activate") your WXP any time they like, without having to state reasons.
They have no FUCKING business on my computer after I paid the license fee. If you don't care, well... it's your choice.
"For my needs Win32 works helluva well? on the desktop. (Not to mention that I like to play games)."
In the office?
"Show of hands, how many of you have parents and grandparents could go to work tomorrow and use *nix without a hitch instead of Win32?"
Loser argument. You've never seen a real computer novice attempt the first steps. I have, I have done some computer courses e.g. for teachers and parents, and believe me, the kind of problems they have have nothing to do with the operating system. Absolutely nothing. Your grandparents will more likely have problems with hand control (how fast is a double-click?) and precision (ever seen a novice try to work with this ergonomic desaster called 'mouse'?) than with "how do I set up USB?" (what's that?).
Having said that, I have parents that tried two years to work with Windows and after they had the second big system crash and had to reinstall everything, they (*NOT* I!) wanted Linux (because they'd seen it in my office). THEY installed it (SuSE 7.3) and for them, it works perfectly. Office productivity, scheduling, networking, E-Mail, internet apps and so on. They liked especially that they didn't need to re-install 10001 drivers and utilities after installing Linux (Windows needed additional USB drivers, printer drivers, TV card drivers, sound drivers, graphic drivers, Acrobat Reader, MP3 player, shall I go on?)
"I'd venture to guess that 99% of *windows* users never figure out *it's* features"
So? Is that a reason to take them out? This is one of the ideas that seem to come only from Microsoft users. "Almost nobody uses that feature anyway, so let's disable it!" If the feature doesn't disturb the non-knowing people (and doesn't hurt performance or stability or whatever), where's the problem?
WHY oh WHY does Windows think in order to be beginner-friendly, it has to be anti-expert?
"The file structure on win32 is a mystery to these workers."
That's the beauty of Unix systems. the ONLY place where you can 'lose' documents is your home directory. no more searching for office documents in windows system folder, the root directory, other 'drives' (what's that? Letters? why can't I put the new drive in a directory where the additional space is needed?) or wherever.
Oh yes: no more being afraid of accidentally deleting system files or clicking on the wrong icon, the premier fear of the computer novice. "You can't break anything, so keep trying.".
"It all boils down to this: If I gave my mother a Porche 911 Twin Turbo tomorrow, I know that she would drive it to work every day exactly the same as she drives her Subaru Outback station wagon. It's only certain people that will take advantage of the extra power. This analogy isn't less applicable to computers, it's MORE applicable."
And if the Porsche were free and the Outback would cost you big cash (and only allow to run on 'licensed' roads)? Would you still buy the Outback "because she'll never use the extra power"?
"The point? Win32 is easier than *nix."
This can not be generalized. I've seen Windows installations that were a HELL of a lot harder to use than some Linux desktops.
It all boils down to "can you ask your friend/neighbour/... to give you a hand if things break": If your neighbour uses Linux, use Linux.
It doesn't matter to the users you are talking about, whether Windows 2000 is missing a DLL and spitting error messages, or if Linux wants to be fscked: Those users will want external help. And if they find the right kind of help, they will stay happy - with Linux or with Windows.
In short, once you have done all this, you have Word. It is identical in behaviour and file formats in every way - so it is the original. And where are you then? Being sued by Microsoft under the DMCA for sure. (You cracked the 'encryption' of the MS Word format and used a 'circumvention device' (Staroffice for example) to get at the copyrighted data.)
Solution: Don't use those formats. It's that simple. Default to something else - XML, RTF, HTML, whatever.
You will never be the first by imitation.
Yeah, right. Who guarantees this? I want it in writing.
And then I want a driver for my PCMCIA network card which is neither supported with Windows 98, nor with 2000, nor with XP. It is, though, under Linux.
When did Microsoft ever guarantee anything? They say in their own EULA that their OS is unfit for 'mission critical' applications, and with the last couple months, most e-mail users and web server admins knew what itreally meant not to be able to properly fix your machine, no matter how much support contracts you had.
"People don't seem to understand that the value of a 3 year old PC is $150 and so there is no particular reason why Microsoft should limit a $100/$200 O/S so that it can run under the constraints of that machine."
no, You don't understand. People don't understand why they should buy a machine whose cost is 50% the software it runs. They don't understand why (to take your example) a simple MP3 player would need hundreds of MB of of hard disk just to drive an operating system, and the manufacturer wouldn't understand why they wouldn't be able to modify the OS to their own taste, but have to rely on the company to provide what is supposedly best for them.
And I personally don't believe that anybody can strip down XP to a level that makes it run satisfactorily on a 386 class CPU from a 4MB flash ROM that needs close to no electrical power, when the application this system is supposed to run doesn't need Gigahertz and Gigabytes.
"I don't expect any traditional UNIX kernel to do well there, the UNIX architecture was never designed for and is simply not up to RT tasks. Thats why the RT Linux varieties have major mods to the internals to support features such as guaranteed scheduling etc."
Windows "wasn't originally designed to be" multi-tasking, multi-user, not to mention even being network capable, either. And I don't think you have actually seen RTLinux yet - or MS have achieved something MUCH better than their various embedded forks of Windows since I last checked.
My point is that RTLinux is making headway fast, and I don't hear much about Windows in the embedded market. And for this, there must be a reason.
"A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, the screenwriter finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer."
Actually, I don't care much about the Russians searching my computers. what I care more about is that American authorities will break in here, violate basic privacy rights (seems normal for the USA to do that) and lock me up before they realize that all the MP3s on my hard disk are my own band recordings.
(Russians wouldn't know what MP3s are anyway. ;)
But this article at law.com seems (to me) very typical for the USA. They picture European countries as 'the evil ones', while assuming that we would have absolutely no problems with American authorities playing king kong on our private premises.
The USA even just blindy assumes it's OK to apply their laws to deeds that were done on other continents months ago, with no connection whatsoever to the USA legislation.
This is just very few people in the USA that are causing this 'anti-Americanism' among many European countries. These need to get real. They need to realize there are more than 51 states in the world, and that we do have electricity and TVs. (OK, that was exaggerated, but you get the point.)
</rant>
But why the hell should we point to Linux supporters so that Microsoft KNOWS where to attack?
Let them do the search themselves!
Well, that is one of the inconveniences something like Passport was supposed to help. (I'm saying something like because I certainly won't trust my data to any company with a security record like Microsoft's).
Yes, you'll have to register. Just like you register on many web sites now. Slashdot for example. So even without a central login system, there's not really any additional effort required.
"Then you have the additional issue of whether the page site is viewable with your particular configuration of browser, monitor, graphics card and OS."
Exactly. And that is why more work needs to be put in many sites. For my hobby sites, I don't really care if IE6 users choke on my HTML or if a little Javascript could make the site more comfortable. For a site where I need customers, I work really hard so that even Netscape 4.x users will have the full benefit. So, a subscribed site will be expected to carry a little more 'polish' than your average hobby site.
Try me. Go to hitchhikers.de and see if you can find a non-buggy, relatively common browser which doesn't display the page correctly. This is a commercial project (not subscription based however) and so I pay attention to the visitor statistics: 50% IE, 40% Netscape (4 and 6), 5% Konqueror, and every browser that is above 1% will work.
What I would prefer is a flat-rate kind of model for web sites, like kuro5hin uses. You pay five Euro a month and can surf the site as much as you want, without banners. Web masters or companies decide what their site is worth and you get a login id or something which identifies you.
I would pay five Euro a month for some of the sites I view regularly. And I'm considering moving some of the bigger sites I maintain to such a model, because
The trouble is that this has to happen everywhere, if people are supposed to accept it. It worked with auction sites (Ricardo, QXL, Ebay) so it will probably work with other sites.
Remember, though - "penny per page" is FAR too complicated.
Simple. Use Corel Linux.
It's an end-user desktop Linux distribution. That is, it is not much more than a very, very bare bones Debian Linux (slink) setup, with a modified and (well) customized KDE desktop. If it can't start KDE it boots into 'safe mode' (twm). By default, there is no console login except for a sulogin on console 2 (console 1 only shows a textbox saying "Please press Alt-F7").
After you install it (and there's not much more to installing than choosing whether to overwrite Windows or not) you get a default desktop with a web browser, an email client, a small office suite (Wordperfect) and a couple assorted (graphical) tools.
Just about the same you get with a default install of Windows 9x.
I.e. *NOTHING* in respect to tools, network stuff, programming languages, etc. The whole install is about 300-400MB. Hell, the first versions of Wordperfect wouldn't even install because xlib was missing.
But the 'average user' wants to install 10000 additional tools after installing the OS. Apparently. They don't want the OS installation to span 1-2 GB, but already include almost every kind of software you will ever need.
If that's what you want, use Corel Linux. It's "Linux for Dummies".
Have you ever right-clicked on the file name input widget? It says right there: "Completion: (none, manual, menu, automatic, short automatic)"
This goes for EVERY input widget that accepts URLs. Not only for file dialogs. KDE rocks. :-)
I.e. they didn't want to learn some new concepts because they (perhaps unconsciously) wanted to prove their older system was better, no matter what the 'techies' say.
People would hit the reset button when X died or crashed ...
I don't know why X died or crashed on yo so often, but
Today ... There are crashes and annoyances on the Windows side but at least it's usable. Linux simply isn't up to the task yet
What you perhaps should have done is provide your users with thin clients which they can reset and reboot all they want (if they want), but which would never damage any file systems or data. the City of Largo did this (see dot.kde.org report) and they are perfectly happy. The users. Not (only) the 'techies'.
But nobody can force a new system down the throat of users who a) don't want it, b) think they still have a choice, c) think their opinion is more important / correct / better / ..., and d) want the 'I told you so' effect to go down on you. (Try giving me Windows. It's not gonna work.)
Whats propaganda here? They are telling the truth. Those viruses only propagate and damage Microsoft systems. They are there because Microsoft systems are so vulnerable. If it weren't for IIS, Windows 2000 etc. those worms wouldn't exist. (And don't "but others would" me - I don't see any reason why Unices, Apache, etc. would be unsafer without Windows.)
Tell the truth. Don't hide behind words. That's a journalist's job, isn't it? And anyway, now with Microsoft distributing reports that claim Apache is also vulnerable, citing relatively harmless directory listing bugs from 1999, why should we not try to educate the public?
But I wouldn't call this a problem. Say 0.1% of all opened projects on Sourceforge (just as an example) will really become mature, widely used, big open source community projects. Aren't those 0.1% worth all the effort? Aren't those 0.1% worth putting up with thousands of dead projects because the developers didn't have time or weren't stubborn enough to carry it out? Would you rather have to certify yourself and prove your product's quality before you can post it on the 'net?
I myself started four OSS projects (one of them a community web site actually) with several people, and three of them are unmaintained ATM because I simply don't have the time to continue them. That doesn't mean they rot, though.
So, to summarize, I would LOVE to have 1000 closed, elitist, non-maintained projects floating round the Web - if that's what it takes to produce the one single genius project that changes our world. See Samba, Perl, GCC, Apache, or whatever you like ...
I have tried it. I started StarOffice REMOTELY on my home machine from a university pool (on a HP/UX machine with 32MB RAM, that could just barely endure CDE). My home machine is in a dorm that is connected with 2MBit/s that is shared by 400 other people.
It was useable. Sure, you couldn't drag full screen images around but I could scroll down my text just as fast as I could locally. If you switched off the 'show content in moving windows' feature you wouldn't have known the difference.
I even started Win4Lin (www.netraverse.com) remotely once in fullscreen to shock our HP/UX admin. Worked as well (both ;-). Strangely, running Netscape on Win4Lin remotely over a shared 2 MBit/s line was more responsive than running a remote Netscape/Linux natively. I don't know what caused this.
But the fact is that you don't even need the full 10MBit to run a simple office application. Most of the time anyway.
I heard the BBC (yes, the UK one) is aiming to use OpenDivX and OGG Vorbis as their primary streaming formats some time in the future. They run Linux on most of their hardware anyway, had some quarrels with Microsoft because they refused to support Windows 2000 (with their media server) when running under VMware or something, weren't allowed to link Realplayer Plugins directly from their page by Real.com - so that's the next option.
I'd really like to know more about this, if anyone has some more insider knowledge please reply.
Right. They only have to understand how to use them, and that includes understanding possible consequences of using them incorrectly.
Morale: "Messer, Schere, Gabel, Licht, ist für kleine Kinder nicht." Don't give someone who does not know how to use it, a tool that could become hazardous.
Just as an example: Today's internet is swamped by users who want to send e-mail "cuz its c00l" but probably don't know what an attachment is. They don't need to know - as long as their email client does not support attachments.. As soon as they get the possibility to send attachments, they must learn
You don't give a 15-year old a 200mph racing car just because "everyone has one". Similarly, you don't give someone without training a gun. (Yes, I know it's different in the US. Does that make me wrong?)
Use the tool that do the job. And make sure the user is educated. Simple tool: simple education. Powerful, complex tool - detailed education. Simple as that.
(Yes, I know I'm dreaming. Please reply to slashdot at jensbenecke dot de if you are interested in serious discussion. I might miss you here.)
"Our hardware runs better without Windows"
?Latin chars have NOTHING in common with their meaning. They are in NO way "self-explanatory", not even close. And still we find them easier because they require little basic learning to achieve great flexibility.
A complex software product must have an interface that makes it efficient to use. If it isn't self explanatory, it doesn't matter much, you'll have to learn anyway. My experience is that many tools that do not follow the "usual" way of manipulation become more efficient, faster and easier to use - after you grasped the philosophy behind.
Examples:
- bash (no visual presentation, no icons)
- vim (different editing modes, keybindings)
- Gimp, Photoshop & Co. (yes, you need to learn here too)
and so on.Of course, there are the programs that only perform very simple tasks and are simply horrendously difficult to use. But most apps that do not use the UI interface standards have a reason.
IMHO.
Exactly! And that is why you will simply not be able to do many legal things in the future, if the industry goes the RIAA/MPAA/SDMI/... way. Look: You are legally permitted to make VCR copies as many as you want. But - without extra effort - you cannot. Why? Because of Macrovision. You can legally buy a DVD, and legally buy a DVD Player, and the player will refuse to play your DVD, because it thinks that you might be in the wrong country. My MD player refuses to copy my own recordings digitally, because by allowing digital copies there is the slight possiblity of maybe me committing a sinister crime (i.e. distributing copyrighted music)!
You would be perfectly legal if you could copy your CDs in the future, only you cannot. That is what "they" want, and if the industry complies, in 5 years CDs will be obsolete. What can be done with stupid laws (DMCA) will be done that way, and where they cannot castrate your basic human rights (freedom of speech for example) the industry will simply take away the technical means for exercising them, and sue every company who doesn't comply.
Look at this article for details about what's wrong with copy protection.
Remember: CDs are just about the only digital Hi-Fi media left that do not have some form of copy protection! They must be destroyed, because every CD owner is a potential criminal!
Napster does NOT "give away something you should be paying for". They do NOT provide MP3s. Yes, I agree that most people see it that way but I haven't seen a single server providing MP3s that is operated by Napster.
What they do is provide peer to peer networking for their customers. What you use that for is your problem. If 90% of Napsters customers use it to trade illegal warez (and I do understand that musicians want to be paid for their work), that's their customers' problem, isn't it?
(I still don't understand why the RIAA doesn't encourage the police to shut down all supermarkets. It would only be logical, because most of then sell e.g. kitchen knives. And I don't know if you realized that, but you can commit illegal, even brutal acts with kitchen knives. Just as you can commit illegal acts when you use the Napster network.)
Probably after a debate about some unimportant VM kernel programming detail, or whether to incorporate a different boot logo into the kernel, or something.
Only that won't hinder the movement. Please don't start another discussion about "what if Linus's plane crashes". There are at least 100 people who could and would take his place if he should become "unavailable" one way or another (which I certainly don't hope).
That's the advantage of believing in an idea, not (primarily) a person.