I wouldn't be surprised if all of this talk about Ubuntu replacing Debian as the "end user" distribution becomes true. However, if it does, it would only be due to a self-fulfilling prophesy. Debian itself is a very good distro for a new user or an experienced one. It was a first distro I ever installed (piece of cake), and it is still the one I prefer today. I personally feel that Debian has a future as much more than just a base for other distros.
I have played Second Life for about 20 hours. I do have an account. However, it simply does not compare to textual worlds. Same experience with World of Warcraft (a different thing entirely I realize). I am hardly some old fuddy duddy denouncing new games and technology: I'm 20 years old. You really need to play in a great textual world to understand what I'm saying. In a graphical world, you can only act out what you have an emote for. In a textual world, you can do anything.
It is unfortunate that the developers decided that a 3D world is needed to have fun. It takes a solid connection and a fast computer to run because of it. Furthermore, it is much more difficult to create and position objects in a 3D environment. A top-down, bitmap based 2D environment would've been preferable in my opinion. Easier, simplier, more accessable, and a lot more fun. I'm a MUDer though, so what do I know?
As someone who does real-time generative audio/video processing, I have to say that oftentimes what a 2GHz machine cannot run comfortably, a 2.5GHz machine can do satisfactorily. 12FPS may not be good enough, but 15FPS may be passible. People often dismiss overclocking as something just for gamers, but in reality, it can be useful to anyone doing processor-intensive, real-time processing. I feel that some of the anti-overclocking opinions here are a bit unjustified, and more of a knee-jerk response to a loosely correlated l33t culture. The only games I play are Clan Lord and Civilization III... hardly a reason to overclock. However, for video processing, I need all the power I can get despite my modest budget.
If you need to write applications that run on platforms not supported by Java, er, how about not using Java? There are certainly many other solutions out there that are quite lovely. Sun's Java does a good job on the important platforms. How many people run PPC Linux? Not so many. I do, but not having the latest, greatest Java VM is hardly killing me. My point is that the problem is not so big that it warrants wasting all this time, especially since other people are already working on solving the problem. Compatibility is always going to be an issue with with the OS VM versus Sun's VM, so why not just do something entirely new altogether? You can't seriously think that Java is the best we can achieve. Beating Sun at their own game is impossible. Instead, let's create something new if it is really necessary, which I'm not convinced it is.
While I agree that good documentation is important, yet often lacking, I must take issue with the library hunting. Most anything the casual (or even non-casual) user will need to install is all available via things such as synaptic/apt-get, etc. Ubuntu and other Debian-based distros (and of course Debian inself) make installing software painless and simple. No, it isn't at the OS X level of "Drag to hard disk to install", but not much else is. But, as often is the case with open source, they fuck up the interface and "polish" part. I mean, why not call the thing "Program Manager" or "Install Software" or something like that. My mom stands a chance at figuring that out. Synaptic Package Manager? Forget it.
This test seems a bit unfair. I know my mom wouldn't stand a chance of installing Windows, and that's doing just fine. We need like a... er... younger sister test.
I run a wiki for computer/electronic artists (ruccas.org).
A whopping 56% of the visitors are using Firefox.
IE accounts for 18%.
Safari brings in 16%.
Hell, Opera brings in 7%.
Pretty incredible really. I should note that only six months ago, Firefox was around 25%.
This idea that Apple is behaving like Microsoft by not supporting WMA playback is insane. Microsoft were the ones that ran off can came up with their own proprietary format in the first place! Apple is supporting the playback of open standards (mp4) and the most common format out there (mp3). How shocking that they do not support the proprietary format their competitor came up with for the sake of screwing them!
I do binary only installs on my Macs, and always have. Never has installing one program broken another. Ever. Software I own from 1992 runs in OS X perfectly. I install via drag and drop. Software Update handles the updates for all Apple software. Most 3rd party apps have a check for updates option. Those that don't, well, I can just look it up on macupdate.com if I want to see. Huge 50,000+ package repositories are overrated. Updating your whole system with one command is nice, sure. However, I can't help but think that all the time that goes into this couldn't be spent on something better. The desktop user doesn't need one-click update ability for everything on their system. As it has been said, they don't care if Gaim is 6 months old. They just need a clean, elegant, and logical UI. Besides, even if they do need one or two programs not part of the base to always be up to date, they'll most likely want to install them manually before they get into the repository anyway.
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I wouldn't be surprised if all of this talk about Ubuntu replacing Debian as the "end user" distribution becomes true. However, if it does, it would only be due to a self-fulfilling prophesy. Debian itself is a very good distro for a new user or an experienced one. It was a first distro I ever installed (piece of cake), and it is still the one I prefer today. I personally feel that Debian has a future as much more than just a base for other distros.
I have played Second Life for about 20 hours. I do have an account. However, it simply does not compare to textual worlds. Same experience with World of Warcraft (a different thing entirely I realize). I am hardly some old fuddy duddy denouncing new games and technology: I'm 20 years old. You really need to play in a great textual world to understand what I'm saying. In a graphical world, you can only act out what you have an emote for. In a textual world, you can do anything.
It is unfortunate that the developers decided that a 3D world is needed to have fun. It takes a solid connection and a fast computer to run because of it. Furthermore, it is much more difficult to create and position objects in a 3D environment. A top-down, bitmap based 2D environment would've been preferable in my opinion. Easier, simplier, more accessable, and a lot more fun. I'm a MUDer though, so what do I know?
Most of the original testers are still around. :-)
Actually, I'd really like to utilize the GPU for audio processing more than anything.
As someone who does real-time generative audio/video processing, I have to say that oftentimes what a 2GHz machine cannot run comfortably, a 2.5GHz machine can do satisfactorily. 12FPS may not be good enough, but 15FPS may be passible. People often dismiss overclocking as something just for gamers, but in reality, it can be useful to anyone doing processor-intensive, real-time processing. I feel that some of the anti-overclocking opinions here are a bit unjustified, and more of a knee-jerk response to a loosely correlated l33t culture. The only games I play are Clan Lord and Civilization III... hardly a reason to overclock. However, for video processing, I need all the power I can get despite my modest budget.
If you need to write applications that run on platforms not supported by Java, er, how about not using Java? There are certainly many other solutions out there that are quite lovely. Sun's Java does a good job on the important platforms. How many people run PPC Linux? Not so many. I do, but not having the latest, greatest Java VM is hardly killing me. My point is that the problem is not so big that it warrants wasting all this time, especially since other people are already working on solving the problem. Compatibility is always going to be an issue with with the OS VM versus Sun's VM, so why not just do something entirely new altogether? You can't seriously think that Java is the best we can achieve. Beating Sun at their own game is impossible. Instead, let's create something new if it is really necessary, which I'm not convinced it is.
While I agree that good documentation is important, yet often lacking, I must take issue with the library hunting. Most anything the casual (or even non-casual) user will need to install is all available via things such as synaptic/apt-get, etc. Ubuntu and other Debian-based distros (and of course Debian inself) make installing software painless and simple. No, it isn't at the OS X level of "Drag to hard disk to install", but not much else is. But, as often is the case with open source, they fuck up the interface and "polish" part. I mean, why not call the thing "Program Manager" or "Install Software" or something like that. My mom stands a chance at figuring that out. Synaptic Package Manager? Forget it.
This test seems a bit unfair. I know my mom wouldn't stand a chance of installing Windows, and that's doing just fine. We need like a ... er ... younger sister test.
I run a wiki for computer/electronic artists (ruccas.org). A whopping 56% of the visitors are using Firefox. IE accounts for 18%. Safari brings in 16%. Hell, Opera brings in 7%. Pretty incredible really. I should note that only six months ago, Firefox was around 25%.
This idea that Apple is behaving like Microsoft by not supporting WMA playback is insane. Microsoft were the ones that ran off can came up with their own proprietary format in the first place! Apple is supporting the playback of open standards (mp4) and the most common format out there (mp3). How shocking that they do not support the proprietary format their competitor came up with for the sake of screwing them!
I do binary only installs on my Macs, and always have. Never has installing one program broken another. Ever. Software I own from 1992 runs in OS X perfectly. I install via drag and drop. Software Update handles the updates for all Apple software. Most 3rd party apps have a check for updates option. Those that don't, well, I can just look it up on macupdate.com if I want to see. Huge 50,000+ package repositories are overrated. Updating your whole system with one command is nice, sure. However, I can't help but think that all the time that goes into this couldn't be spent on something better. The desktop user doesn't need one-click update ability for everything on their system. As it has been said, they don't care if Gaim is 6 months old. They just need a clean, elegant, and logical UI. Besides, even if they do need one or two programs not part of the base to always be up to date, they'll most likely want to install them manually before they get into the repository anyway.