My Acer 1362WMLi works almost perfectly with Ubuntu as it stands, but guaranteed Linux-compatible hardware would of course be nice!
As for usability issues, lots of people I deal with barely know how to use Windows. However, there's two ways of looking at this -
Either it means a different OS will throw them completely, or they'll have a blank canvas to learn on. I didn't really know how to use Linux effectively three weeks ago but now it is a hugely rare occurance for me to boot into Windows as I'm able to do everything as I could before, well, in fact, in many cases better than I could before and more easily too.
Ubuntu also manages my battery far better than Windows. This is not true across the board however, as I previously used Suse 9.2 Pro, which swallowed my battery life quicker than Windows.
Finding the right tool for the job would appear to be the issue we face, deciding which distro to promote for which type of user might do much to encourage Linux uptake, at least in my opinion.
I tried Netscape a while back, never really liked it, it seemed like a bloated version of IE.
Then came Firefox, my browser of choice. Basically, Netscape became valueless and I know of only one person who prefers it to anything else now, is this (flawed) release going to do anything to change this? Some how, I doubt it very much.
Isn't Netscape somewhere between Opera and Firefox?
At least Opera feels a bit more "properly" different.
I'd be enormously suprised if Netscape wins any more users, especially with the "Spread Firefox" campaigns. Perhaps the Netscape bods ought to take some lessons from Firefox?
Where I am, in Wales, Orange have far superior coverage than Vodafone. Both my parents cancelled their contracts with Vodafone due to it.
However, cross network charges are ludicrous!
I phoned, off-peak, from an orange to vodafone and went through over £8 in under 25 minutes. Insane.
My phone, an n-gage, is alright for watching XviD encoded films on, as long as headphones are used for sound. However, TV on phones seems silly. However, maybe in time it will lead to further, more useful technology.
I wouldn't troll this place, or anywhere for that matter, I just kinda feel that I don't deserve to be treated like a retard when I'm not. Perhaps treated as less intelligent than some of the posters as that's certainly true, but stupid I am not.
I don't mind the terms, generally, it's when you get articles posted that are in the region of 75% acronyms, heh.
Would it be possible to have a sort of synopsis of the license agreement at the top of the agreement. Possibly such as "This software is free for all.." followed by a sentence explaining vaguely the conditions and ended with a sentence such as "Further clarification below." ?
I mean, you have to get the user's attention because we all know how quickly they lose inter.. ooh look! A shiny thing!
I just think it might make sense to adopt some adapted capitalist thinking - "always make it easy for people to give you money". Make it easy for users to understand, so to speak (heh, ignore the money part, unless you're SCO..). But I take your point on the lawyers, very true.
Cheers for the apology too, it's nice that people are still able to apologise, even if lots of the world makes it look otherwise.
Thanks, really friendly. My name isn't any referrence to trolling or flaming. I chose it about four years ago and it stuck.
It is part of geek culture, because it is something geeks care about a lot it would seem. It may well also be part of other areas, but I don't see most people understanding or even caring about the issue.
Just about anything, short of perhaps an advanced network security manual, could be simpler than the license agreements MS and co throw at us. I would definitely agree that open source licenses are simpler. However, you seem to misunderstand - I am quite geeky. If I find it to be this way, what will normal users think?
Perhaps by being part of this discussion I hoped to learn about the licenses in a meaningful way which I might remember, instead of trawling through assorted websites? Some of us find it easier to learn in different ways from others.
Seriously though, I'm quite new to slashdot and I've behaved as well as could be expected and yet I still get treated like crap. What more do you guys want? I'm not calling you names or telling you to get a life, I'm just saying that if such issues are to be understood by a larger number of people, there needs to be a simple interpretation of them, as people are often completely clueless as I'm sure you know if you think about it.
Speaking from the point of view of someone less deeply engrossed in the geek culture, I'd like to say that these licenses confuse the hell out of me.
GPL? BSD? I mean, to me it means very little. Then again, it may well be important, but it'd be nice if we could see some sort of umbrella license that made it all clear to normal people. Free, open source, software should have a clear explanation of the terms in simple language, this way it'd be more likely that people would read them, instead of just clicking "I Agree". All these acronyms confuse lots of people!
I kinda figured that ubuntu is aimed at a major growth area. I mean, we've got loads of hardcore users like yourself, and there are many distros catering to you. However, it isn't just teenagers who drool over eye-candy, thanks all the same.
If I'm going to succeed in "selling" Linux to these people who have been using XP, they want something that feels better than Windows. Sometimes looks *do* matter.
Without Debian there'd be no Ubuntu? Yes, and?
Without the invention of the internal combustion engine there'd be no cars. Doesn't mean that if the company producing the internal combustion engine goes bust that car production stops, not any more.
Being fairly new to the linux scene, I've often asked around for which distro to use.
Some say Suse, some say Fedora, Gentoo, etc. Debian hasn't been mentioned to me, ever.
Says something about it doesn't it?
One of the wonderful things about linux is its organic nature - it's constantly evolving. New stuff happens every week, it's exciting. If debian isn't going to utilise this major strength of the linux and open source movement, then it looks like it's going to just have to shrivel up and eventually disappear.
Evolve or die, basically.
I personally love Ubuntu as it doesn't overwhelm me with packages or settings and works mostly straight out of the box. It also feels very clean and fresh - ideal for new users.
Hmm, I might look into it.
New Zealand, eh? Just bought a little place there on the South Island..
I'm wondering if there's a good script for a gallery of images, sounds, etc - like a gallery for all file types with support for reviews, submissions, etc. Any suggestions?
Heh, hands off Val.
The whole site is kinda under-construction. It's intentional, as it's a community thing. So some parts of it can't be built yet and other parts I don't have the skills to build yet, lol.
The font size is fine on 1280*800, as far as I recall, *checks*, no I'm certain - changing the font size of one tab doesn't affect the others, at least not in Firefox.
"we work because we are fierce of our product"
That's a new way of using English, lol.
"We're passionate about what we do!" might have been more what you were trying to say.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I was aware, centrino laptops have Pentium-Ms..
Centrino is just a few extra features such as wireless.
I hated it when I was looking to buy a laptop and clerks kept trying to convince me that what I in fact *really* wanted was a Celeron..
Eventually I bought something of my own liking off the net and then installed Ubuntu on it myself.
Isn't that like an oxymoron..?
My Acer 1362WMLi works almost perfectly with Ubuntu as it stands, but guaranteed Linux-compatible hardware would of course be nice!
As for usability issues, lots of people I deal with barely know how to use Windows. However, there's two ways of looking at this -
Either it means a different OS will throw them completely, or they'll have a blank canvas to learn on. I didn't really know how to use Linux effectively three weeks ago but now it is a hugely rare occurance for me to boot into Windows as I'm able to do everything as I could before, well, in fact, in many cases better than I could before and more easily too.
Ubuntu also manages my battery far better than Windows. This is not true across the board however, as I previously used Suse 9.2 Pro, which swallowed my battery life quicker than Windows.
Finding the right tool for the job would appear to be the issue we face, deciding which distro to promote for which type of user might do much to encourage Linux uptake, at least in my opinion.
I tried Netscape a while back, never really liked it, it seemed like a bloated version of IE.
Then came Firefox, my browser of choice. Basically, Netscape became valueless and I know of only one person who prefers it to anything else now, is this (flawed) release going to do anything to change this? Some how, I doubt it very much.
Isn't Netscape somewhere between Opera and Firefox?
At least Opera feels a bit more "properly" different.
I'd be enormously suprised if Netscape wins any more users, especially with the "Spread Firefox" campaigns. Perhaps the Netscape bods ought to take some lessons from Firefox?
Also, new book - Woken Furies. Sequel to both Altered Carbon and Broken Angels.
Wasn't it "real death"?
*checks*
Yep. Real Death - "He RDed 22 people" type of thing, see Altered Carbon.
Imagine how many mpeg4 films you could fit on a removeable medium like a stack..
Where I am, in Wales, Orange have far superior coverage than Vodafone. Both my parents cancelled their contracts with Vodafone due to it. However, cross network charges are ludicrous! I phoned, off-peak, from an orange to vodafone and went through over £8 in under 25 minutes. Insane. My phone, an n-gage, is alright for watching XviD encoded films on, as long as headphones are used for sound. However, TV on phones seems silly. However, maybe in time it will lead to further, more useful technology.
I wouldn't troll this place, or anywhere for that matter, I just kinda feel that I don't deserve to be treated like a retard when I'm not. Perhaps treated as less intelligent than some of the posters as that's certainly true, but stupid I am not.
I don't mind the terms, generally, it's when you get articles posted that are in the region of 75% acronyms, heh.
Would it be possible to have a sort of synopsis of the license agreement at the top of the agreement. Possibly such as "This software is free for all.." followed by a sentence explaining vaguely the conditions and ended with a sentence such as "Further clarification below." ?
I mean, you have to get the user's attention because we all know how quickly they lose inter.. ooh look! A shiny thing!
I just think it might make sense to adopt some adapted capitalist thinking - "always make it easy for people to give you money". Make it easy for users to understand, so to speak (heh, ignore the money part, unless you're SCO..). But I take your point on the lawyers, very true.
Cheers for the apology too, it's nice that people are still able to apologise, even if lots of the world makes it look otherwise.
Thanks, really friendly. My name isn't any referrence to trolling or flaming. I chose it about four years ago and it stuck.
It is part of geek culture, because it is something geeks care about a lot it would seem. It may well also be part of other areas, but I don't see most people understanding or even caring about the issue.
Just about anything, short of perhaps an advanced network security manual, could be simpler than the license agreements MS and co throw at us. I would definitely agree that open source licenses are simpler. However, you seem to misunderstand - I am quite geeky. If I find it to be this way, what will normal users think?
Perhaps by being part of this discussion I hoped to learn about the licenses in a meaningful way which I might remember, instead of trawling through assorted websites? Some of us find it easier to learn in different ways from others.
Seriously though, I'm quite new to slashdot and I've behaved as well as could be expected and yet I still get treated like crap. What more do you guys want? I'm not calling you names or telling you to get a life, I'm just saying that if such issues are to be understood by a larger number of people, there needs to be a simple interpretation of them, as people are often completely clueless as I'm sure you know if you think about it.
Kinda like the Gentoo of licensing..
Speaking from the point of view of someone less deeply engrossed in the geek culture, I'd like to say that these licenses confuse the hell out of me.
GPL? BSD? I mean, to me it means very little. Then again, it may well be important, but it'd be nice if we could see some sort of umbrella license that made it all clear to normal people. Free, open source, software should have a clear explanation of the terms in simple language, this way it'd be more likely that people would read them, instead of just clicking "I Agree". All these acronyms confuse lots of people!
So I'm a narrow-minded fool?
I kinda figured that ubuntu is aimed at a major growth area. I mean, we've got loads of hardcore users like yourself, and there are many distros catering to you. However, it isn't just teenagers who drool over eye-candy, thanks all the same.
If I'm going to succeed in "selling" Linux to these people who have been using XP, they want something that feels better than Windows. Sometimes looks *do* matter.
Without Debian there'd be no Ubuntu? Yes, and?
Without the invention of the internal combustion engine there'd be no cars. Doesn't mean that if the company producing the internal combustion engine goes bust that car production stops, not any more.
Being fairly new to the linux scene, I've often asked around for which distro to use.
Some say Suse, some say Fedora, Gentoo, etc. Debian hasn't been mentioned to me, ever.
Says something about it doesn't it?
One of the wonderful things about linux is its organic nature - it's constantly evolving. New stuff happens every week, it's exciting. If debian isn't going to utilise this major strength of the linux and open source movement, then it looks like it's going to just have to shrivel up and eventually disappear.
Evolve or die, basically.
I personally love Ubuntu as it doesn't overwhelm me with packages or settings and works mostly straight out of the box. It also feels very clean and fresh - ideal for new users.
Huh.. funny.
Anyway.. what about Legend of Mir?!
More importantly, will we still have to deal with people forgetting to pay for another year of Norton Anti-virus updates?
*Blam blam blam dakka dakka dakka*
Oops.. I knew there was something we forgot to update..
Seriously, it's a joke. We always ask if any new hardware will run Linux, remember?
off-topic != bad homosexuality != bad Just thought I'd inform you, although penetrating your neanderthal skull might be a bit difficult.
Physicologisers?
Astronomicians?
without challenging cosmological theory
Isn't it supposed to be about challenging current theories?
Rock on RD! Do we expect the film to be any good?
Aww.. how cute.. *wanders off to find Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch..*
Hmm, I might look into it. New Zealand, eh? Just bought a little place there on the South Island.. I'm wondering if there's a good script for a gallery of images, sounds, etc - like a gallery for all file types with support for reviews, submissions, etc. Any suggestions?
I feel a sudden urge to go and register rim.jobs ..
I wonder how much it'd cost me?
Heh, hands off Val. The whole site is kinda under-construction. It's intentional, as it's a community thing. So some parts of it can't be built yet and other parts I don't have the skills to build yet, lol. The font size is fine on 1280*800, as far as I recall, *checks*, no I'm certain - changing the font size of one tab doesn't affect the others, at least not in Firefox.
With a cigar and a blowtorch?
That's a new way of using English, lol.
"We're passionate about what we do!" might have been more what you were trying to say.
*chuckles in a friendly manner*