Windows XP just works? That is an oxymoron. That is exactly what led me to Linux. Windows does not work. It freezes frequently. It needs considerable effort (and money - AND MONEY) to keep it free from viruses. Internet explorer does not stop when I press the stop button. I can not unload a program without leaving traces somewhere in my disk and the registry. In fact I may not be able to remove a program at all. If I load a game (a demanding game not a trivial one), it changes the behavior of Windows even if I uninstall it. The only solution is to reinstall Windows. Yet I can not reinstall Windows more than 3 times, though the copy is MINE because I paid for it. Here in Greece the tax agency demands that I give them the licenses of Windows and the actual invoices of the purchase (US is really our boss). I have to keep records about which license belongs to which computer (I am responsible for about 20 PCs). I delete users, yet somehow windows remembers them; Documents and Setting fills up. If a make a presentation it is likely that it won't work in another Windows box, because it will be an earlier or later version of Powerpoint, or because it is just another copy of windows (home, professional, SP1, SP2, SP999). And more and more.
In my experience openoffice opens correctly documents written by its erlier versions (that go back to StarOffice in 1999). But MSOffice does not. In fact, frequently I open old MSOffice documents with OpenOffice and save back to newer MSOffice format as a workaround (I have problems mainly with Greek text).
I also use GIMP a lot, as I frequently produce orthophotographs, and I never missed any feature (I am not an artist though). And I am used to the GIMP interface and it does not look odd to me. I remember that in 2006 (or 2005- hard to remember) I had to edit a satellite image which was nearly 3 GB, which I did very smoothly with 64bit GIMP (SuSE Linux) and 4GB of RAM. Some colleagues had tried the same with windows and (of course 32 bit - that was years ago) PhotoShop and it took them ages to do the job.
And did I mention that Linux, OpenOffice, GIMP, gcc, gfortran, python are for free (as in beer) for all the 20 PCs of the small company I work for? And did I mention that we do not have to keep records with all the licenses AND the invoices of purchase for every single bit of software as it is obligatory in Greece? (and don't tell me it is illegal for the BSA to demand the actual invoices, even though we have the actual licenses - that's the way things are in Greece).
Please use proprietary software if that is your wish. Free software certainly gives us an advantage.
The idea is to get _some_ humans off this rock, so that when an asteroid hits earth our species is not wiped out.
Besides, if everyone went to, say, Mars, we would have the same problem.
Unmatched flexibility with arrays. Guaranteed numerical precision between architectures (no #defines are needed). No headers. Safe pointers (there are no unsafe pointers). Built-in parallelization on multiple data. And in Fortran 2008, superbly integrated parallelization MIMD based on a few easy to understand commands (not functions, not libraries).
I agree. But I do the first implementation of a new idea (which I don't know if it works) with Python. It is much faster and safer to program in Python. If the Python implementation works, and it is very slow, then I convert the code to Fortran95.
But the free g95 compiler (www.g95.org) does support parallelization, which is superbly integrated with the rest of the language, according to the unofficial Fortran2008 standard. I have even written a paper using Fortran parallelization; it took me a couple of weeks from the idea to the implementation of fully parallel algorithm:)
Well, I have been using Linux on the Desktop for more than 5 years. At home and at office. With Linux everything is a few clicks away (SuSE supplemented with packman repository). I never missed anything, but then again I don't play games.
At office there is an exception: CAD. If it was not for that, I would switch all the desktops to Linux. With Windows it is a PITA to manage them. I have to keep a separate file for each computer (about 20 of them) with the OS disk and license, multiple CDs with Windows drivers. I have to keep the invoices, cause BSA does not accept the licenses or the genuine CDs - I have to show BSA the actual invoices (and don't tell me that this is illegal; its the way things are in Greece).
Then I have to keep the boxes of AutoCAD with the disks and licenses into separate files (we only have 6 of them) and of course the invoices too. And I almost can't deinstall AutoCAD from 1 computer and install it in another one; it's too fragile a procedure and usually something goes wrong and I have to phone our supplier to take different serial number, and they are suspicious. Once I invited them to do the job by themselves, and they never showed up. And then beg them to give me the license keys, for software that the company had paid a lot of money to buy.
I do the same for the few MS-Office we have. Thank GOD, they are only
for compatibility, and we rarely use them now. And there are few other programs (Visual Basic, PhotoShop and so on) which cause similar trouble.
Additionally, every month or so I have to reinstall Windows. This takes time.
Almost all the computers we have are different and need different drivers.
And of course I have to install the software which needs a zillion reboots.
(and yes, it is Windows XP). It took me more than 1 day (8 hours) to install
everything, as there was always something more urgent to be done at office.
(now I install dual boot Linux, and take an image of the Windows partition,
so that I can deploy it very quickly). Contrast this with the installation of Linux (SuSE), which takes about half an hour, unattended, complete with the software. And, you know, full 64bit since 2005 and SuSE Linux 9.3.
10 years ago, we had Novel 3.11 network with 10 users. This, I found out, included printer servers, and the company wouldn't spend money to upgrade to 25 users. I had to figure out, whom to kick off the network so that the others could work. When the company made up their minds, we had to upgrade to newer version, which cost more money. About that time I discovered free SAMBA, and all the problems just vanished. Unlimited users. Unlimited users for free. Unlimited
users with no bureaucracy.
There is one last thing. Each program we bought, didn't always do what it ought to be doing, or it didn't do what we wanted it to do. So there was considerable effort to turn our in-house software to cooperate with autocad, to invent ways to represent various structures in the photogrammetric station (and even more to extract the information), to circumvent problems in the static-analysis software, to overcome limitations of the then Microsoft Fortran Compiler. And then train the other (civil) engineers. Our effort was added value, but it was added value to the programs we bought, because without them we had nothing (this was actually what I was told by an AutoCAD salesperson).
Suddenly, it occurred to me, about the same effort was needed for free GPLed programs, and the added value would be ours, because the free programs are - free. Since then I program in Linux and make sure that the programs run in windows too. I never found out any deficiency of Linux (in programming), quite the opposite, but then again I am used to Linux for 10 years now (GOD I am old). I don't do web-programming, just technical (civil engineering) and vector graphics.
I also started with Slackware, I still have the CD which I bought in (the end of) 1995.
But the first useful thing I did with Linux was in 1999, when I set up a file server with SAMBA. Until then I used Novell Netware 3.11 which had a limit of 10 clients. I just couldn't believe that with Linux I had unlimited clients for no money at all, which also happened to be faster than Netware.
I ran SuSE Linux 6.2 on a discarded 1993 computer - 486-66MHz, 16MB RAM, 2GB SCSI hard disk, three 3COM 3C503 LAN cards. Incredible!
Yes, I read it. This guy actually ran (an obviously pre-release of) windows 7, and tried it out. He found that certain apps don't count (e.g. Windows explorer!) and so on.
But this means nothing. MS can change it tomorrow. As many/.ers mentioned, MS has not defined what an app is.
And, you know, MS may write this term to the EULA, making you a criminal if you accidentally launch a 4th app.
Enjoy windows!
For non-native English speakers, GIMP is a fine distinct name, which is nothing more or less than pentium (it does not mean anything, it's just a name). In fact it is better than windows, or photoshop because it is shorter:)
And ROCKBOX immediately reminds me of ROCK music (which is, I believe, a universal word), not a box of big stones.
So, when you make comments, think that the majority of people might, just might, have a different opinion.
I have Windows installed legally (I have a house to sleep in) but I use the command line and I LIKE IT (I make room in my car and I sleep in my car and I LIKE IT).
Does it seem reasonable to a jury of know-nothing-else Windows users?
I bought a PC with Windows legally installed, for which I paid real money, and I deleted it and I installed Linux; not now that Linux is mainstream, a decade ago.
Does it seem reasonable to a jury of know-nothing-else Windows users, a decade ago?
By the way the gypsies in my country do exactly that. Some have real houses but prefer to sleep in their cars or in tents outside their house.
DOES IT SEEM REASONABLE TO YOU?
IT DOES TO THEM.
Well, my SuSE 9.3 Linux recognised my sound card (integrated in the motherboard) perfectly and automatically. WINXP didn't. I had to search for the drivers and it took me about 1 hour. Actually, Linux installation lasted half an hour, with all drivers and tons of apps and no reboots. On the other hand WINXP installation lasted for the better part of a day. I include the time for the installation of FOSS apps (openoffice, gimp, python, gcc, firefox etc.)
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Windows XP just works? That is an oxymoron. That is exactly what led me to Linux. Windows does not work. It freezes frequently. It needs considerable effort (and money - AND MONEY) to keep it free from viruses. Internet explorer does not stop when I press the stop button. I can not unload a program without leaving traces somewhere in my disk and the registry. In fact I may not be able to remove a program at all. If I load a game (a demanding game not a trivial one), it changes the behavior of Windows even if I uninstall it. The only solution is to reinstall Windows. Yet I can not reinstall Windows more than 3 times, though the copy is MINE because I paid for it. Here in Greece the tax agency demands that I give them the licenses of Windows and the actual invoices of the purchase (US is really our boss). I have to keep records about which license belongs to which computer (I am responsible for about 20 PCs). I delete users, yet somehow windows remembers them; Documents and Setting fills up. If a make a presentation it is likely that it won't work in another Windows box, because it will be an earlier or later version of Powerpoint, or because it is just another copy of windows (home, professional, SP1, SP2, SP999). And more and more.
In my experience openoffice opens correctly documents written by its erlier versions (that go back to StarOffice in 1999). But MSOffice does not. In fact, frequently I open old MSOffice documents with OpenOffice and save back to newer MSOffice format as a workaround (I have problems mainly with Greek text).
I also use GIMP a lot, as I frequently produce orthophotographs, and I never missed any feature (I am not an artist though). And I am used to the GIMP interface and it does not look odd to me. I remember that in 2006 (or 2005- hard to remember) I had to edit a satellite image which was nearly 3 GB, which I did very smoothly with 64bit GIMP (SuSE Linux) and 4GB of RAM. Some colleagues had tried the same with windows and (of course 32 bit - that was years ago) PhotoShop and it took them ages to do the job.
And did I mention that Linux, OpenOffice, GIMP, gcc, gfortran, python are for free (as in beer) for all the 20 PCs of the small company I work for? And did I mention that we do not have to keep records with all the licenses AND the invoices of purchase for every single bit of software as it is obligatory in Greece? (and don't tell me it is illegal for the BSA to demand the actual invoices, even though we have the actual licenses - that's the way things are in Greece).
Please use proprietary software if that is your wish. Free software certainly gives us an advantage.
The idea is to get _some_ humans off this rock, so that when an asteroid hits earth our species is not wiped out.
Besides, if everyone went to, say, Mars, we would have the same problem.
Conspiracies? Please correct me if I'm wrong but Microsoft is a convicted monopolist.
And have you forgotten all about the OOXML? Conspiracies again?
What about 1GB of RAM? Or less?
Unmatched flexibility with arrays. Guaranteed numerical precision between architectures (no #defines are needed). No headers. Safe pointers (there are no unsafe pointers). Built-in parallelization on multiple data. And in Fortran 2008, superbly integrated parallelization MIMD based on a few easy to understand commands (not functions, not libraries).
I agree. But I do the first implementation of a new idea (which I don't know if it works) with Python. It is much faster and safer to program in Python. If the Python implementation works, and it is very slow, then I convert the code to Fortran95.
But the free g95 compiler (www.g95.org) does support parallelization, which is superbly integrated with the rest of the language, according to the unofficial Fortran2008 standard. I have even written a paper using Fortran parallelization; it took me a couple of weeks from the idea to the implementation of fully parallel algorithm :)
Does China have an endless supply of rare earths? What happens when the mines are depleted?
Whether we like it or not, conquer of space will be necessary in the not too distant future.
firefox, openoffice, apache and more.
gcc, python, perl and more.
supertux, xmoto, doom (these are exceptions, but still..).
So?
Well, I have been using Linux on the Desktop for more than 5 years. At home and at office. With Linux everything is a few clicks away (SuSE supplemented with packman repository). I never missed anything, but then again I don't play games.
At office there is an exception: CAD. If it was not for that, I would switch all the desktops to Linux. With Windows it is a PITA to manage them. I have to keep a separate file for each computer (about 20 of them) with the OS disk and license, multiple CDs with Windows drivers. I have to keep the invoices, cause BSA does not accept the licenses or the genuine CDs - I have to show BSA the actual invoices (and don't tell me that this is illegal; its the way things are in Greece).
Then I have to keep the boxes of AutoCAD with the disks and licenses into separate files (we only have 6 of them) and of course the invoices too. And I almost can't deinstall AutoCAD from 1 computer and install it in another one; it's too fragile a procedure and usually something goes wrong and I have to phone our supplier to take different serial number, and they are suspicious. Once I invited them to do the job by themselves, and they never showed up. And then beg them to give me the license keys, for software that the company had paid a lot of money to buy.
I do the same for the few MS-Office we have. Thank GOD, they are only for compatibility, and we rarely use them now. And there are few other programs (Visual Basic, PhotoShop and so on) which cause similar trouble.
Additionally, every month or so I have to reinstall Windows. This takes time. Almost all the computers we have are different and need different drivers. And of course I have to install the software which needs a zillion reboots. (and yes, it is Windows XP). It took me more than 1 day (8 hours) to install everything, as there was always something more urgent to be done at office. (now I install dual boot Linux, and take an image of the Windows partition, so that I can deploy it very quickly). Contrast this with the installation of Linux (SuSE), which takes about half an hour, unattended, complete with the software. And, you know, full 64bit since 2005 and SuSE Linux 9.3.
10 years ago, we had Novel 3.11 network with 10 users. This, I found out, included printer servers, and the company wouldn't spend money to upgrade to 25 users. I had to figure out, whom to kick off the network so that the others could work. When the company made up their minds, we had to upgrade to newer version, which cost more money. About that time I discovered free SAMBA, and all the problems just vanished. Unlimited users. Unlimited users for free. Unlimited users with no bureaucracy.
There is one last thing. Each program we bought, didn't always do what it ought to be doing, or it didn't do what we wanted it to do. So there was considerable effort to turn our in-house software to cooperate with autocad, to invent ways to represent various structures in the photogrammetric station (and even more to extract the information), to circumvent problems in the static-analysis software, to overcome limitations of the then Microsoft Fortran Compiler. And then train the other (civil) engineers. Our effort was added value, but it was added value to the programs we bought, because without them we had nothing (this was actually what I was told by an AutoCAD salesperson).
Suddenly, it occurred to me, about the same effort was needed for free GPLed programs, and the added value would be ours, because the free programs are - free. Since then I program in Linux and make sure that the programs run in windows too. I never found out any deficiency of Linux (in programming), quite the opposite, but then again I am used to Linux for 10 years now (GOD I am old). I don't do web-programming, just technical (civil engineering) and vector graphics.
Thanasis
I agree. The _only_ reason that there are still some Windoze (dual boot with Linux) machines in my office is AutoCad.Nothing else.
I also started with Slackware, I still have the CD which I bought in (the end of) 1995.
But the first useful thing I did with Linux was in 1999, when I set up a file server with SAMBA. Until then I used Novell Netware 3.11 which had a limit of 10 clients. I just couldn't believe that with Linux I had unlimited clients for no money at all, which also happened to be faster than Netware.
I ran SuSE Linux 6.2 on a discarded 1993 computer - 486-66MHz, 16MB RAM, 2GB SCSI hard disk, three 3COM 3C503 LAN cards. Incredible!
Yes, I read it. This guy actually ran (an obviously pre-release of) windows 7, and tried it out. He found that certain apps don't count (e.g. Windows explorer!) and so on. But this means nothing. MS can change it tomorrow. As many /.ers mentioned, MS has not defined what an app is.
And, you know, MS may write this term to the EULA, making you a criminal if you accidentally launch a 4th app.
Enjoy windows!
One piece at a time. And yes, there is LinuxBios (or whatever they call it now).
Agreed. But where is the source?
For non-native English speakers, GIMP is a fine distinct name, which is nothing more or less than pentium (it does not mean anything, it's just a name). In fact it is better than windows, or photoshop because it is shorter :)
And ROCKBOX immediately reminds me of ROCK music (which is, I believe, a universal word), not a box of big stones.
So, when you make comments, think that the majority of people might, just might, have a different opinion.
I have Windows installed legally (I have a house to sleep in) but I use the command line and I LIKE IT (I make room in my car and I sleep in my car and I LIKE IT).
Does it seem reasonable to a jury of know-nothing-else Windows users?
I bought a PC with Windows legally installed, for which I paid real money, and I deleted it and I installed Linux; not now that Linux is mainstream, a decade ago.
Does it seem reasonable to a jury of know-nothing-else Windows users, a decade ago?
By the way the gypsies in my country do exactly that. Some have real houses but prefer to sleep in their cars or in tents outside their house.
DOES IT SEEM REASONABLE TO YOU?
IT DOES TO THEM.
Well, my SuSE 9.3 Linux recognised my sound card (integrated in the motherboard) perfectly and automatically.
WINXP didn't. I had to search for the drivers and it took me about 1 hour.
Actually, Linux installation lasted half an hour, with all drivers and tons of apps and no reboots. On the other hand WINXP installation lasted for the better part of a day. I include the time for the installation of FOSS apps (openoffice, gimp, python, gcc, firefox etc.)