BTW, I am a big fan of Linux. I use Ubuntu personally. It is interesting to read how words get interpreted. I want drivers to be open source. I do not want drivers to be proprietary. I was lamenting that Microsoft gets special treatment that keeps people hooked onto Windows.
Real World Issue: While Broadcom and some other wireless vendors work with Windows, I recently had an opportunity to switch a neighbor from Windows to Ubuntu. Ultimately my neighbor said I had to go back to Windows because he couldn't make his particular wireless card work. He didn't want to fight with it and so Windows won that battle.
Real World Issue: I built Ubuntu computers for my kids. The problem came when they wanted to do all the iTunes stuff they were used to doing with their iPods. I downloaded a couple of iTunes-compatible packages, but it wasn't iTunes, so in the end I had to go back to Windows.
Real World Issue: I have a Brother Multifunction printer-scanner. I could get the printer to work with CUPS, but the scanner was a no-go under Ubuntu. I wish I could have just plugged in the multifunction and had it work, but that was not the case. So I don't use the scanner with Ubuntu.
I totally love Ubuntu and love apps like VLC (but only grudgingly love things like OpenOffice and font handling in Linux) and with nVIDIA available for Linux feel even closer to being able to give up Microsoft altogether, but Linux has to step up to the plate, improve its integration with iPod, with scanners, with wireless cards, and all the other crap that has to be reverse engineered. Or else Joe Sixpack will continue to fall into the arms of Windows over and over again.
MS is still the clear winner when it comes to drivers.
If I install even the latest Linux I still have issues with hunting down drivers, especially for wireless cards.
Vendors only want to have to write and maintain one set of drivers so they write drivers for windows. If there was an open standard for drivers that worked across all platforms then Microsoft would not have an advantage over OSS.
I decided to give Kubuntu a try, even took what felt like something of a risk by going with 7.10 while it is still beta, and I've had nothing but a GOOD EXPERIENCE with it. I was surprised how easy it was to switch. I could set up and navigate the system without ever having to go to the command line. I've had only two program crashes, but it didn't take down my system when the programs crashed. They just went away. Within a couple of days, the update system had a fix and I've been rock solid full speed ahead since then.
My one quibble, and it is a small quibble, is that the updater doesn't have a setting to just download and install everything in the background, and only to alert me when it needs to reboot (which is rare, even after all the updates). Since there are daily updates, it would be nice to have a "don't bother me, just take care of it" option.
I'm using this on an HP / Compaq laptop, and it works great. Couldn't be happier with Kubuntu for desktop Linux (though I would like to see better iPod support, but that's it).
"Intel expects SSE4 optimizations to deliver performance improvements in video authoring, imaging, graphics, video search, off-chip accelerators, gaming and physics applications. Early benchmarks with an SSE4 optimized version of DivX 6.6 Alpha yielded a 116 percent performance improvement due to SSE4 optimizations."
Not bad...
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BTW, I am a big fan of Linux. I use Ubuntu personally. It is interesting to read how words get interpreted. I want drivers to be open source. I do not want drivers to be proprietary. I was lamenting that Microsoft gets special treatment that keeps people hooked onto Windows. Real World Issue: While Broadcom and some other wireless vendors work with Windows, I recently had an opportunity to switch a neighbor from Windows to Ubuntu. Ultimately my neighbor said I had to go back to Windows because he couldn't make his particular wireless card work. He didn't want to fight with it and so Windows won that battle. Real World Issue: I built Ubuntu computers for my kids. The problem came when they wanted to do all the iTunes stuff they were used to doing with their iPods. I downloaded a couple of iTunes-compatible packages, but it wasn't iTunes, so in the end I had to go back to Windows. Real World Issue: I have a Brother Multifunction printer-scanner. I could get the printer to work with CUPS, but the scanner was a no-go under Ubuntu. I wish I could have just plugged in the multifunction and had it work, but that was not the case. So I don't use the scanner with Ubuntu. I totally love Ubuntu and love apps like VLC (but only grudgingly love things like OpenOffice and font handling in Linux) and with nVIDIA available for Linux feel even closer to being able to give up Microsoft altogether, but Linux has to step up to the plate, improve its integration with iPod, with scanners, with wireless cards, and all the other crap that has to be reverse engineered. Or else Joe Sixpack will continue to fall into the arms of Windows over and over again.
MS is still the clear winner when it comes to drivers. If I install even the latest Linux I still have issues with hunting down drivers, especially for wireless cards. Vendors only want to have to write and maintain one set of drivers so they write drivers for windows. If there was an open standard for drivers that worked across all platforms then Microsoft would not have an advantage over OSS.
All time is relative -- and all time with relatives slows down. With time-space being relative, we won't notice it is slowing down.
I decided to give Kubuntu a try, even took what felt like something of a risk by going with 7.10 while it is still beta, and I've had nothing but a GOOD EXPERIENCE with it. I was surprised how easy it was to switch. I could set up and navigate the system without ever having to go to the command line. I've had only two program crashes, but it didn't take down my system when the programs crashed. They just went away. Within a couple of days, the update system had a fix and I've been rock solid full speed ahead since then. My one quibble, and it is a small quibble, is that the updater doesn't have a setting to just download and install everything in the background, and only to alert me when it needs to reboot (which is rare, even after all the updates). Since there are daily updates, it would be nice to have a "don't bother me, just take care of it" option. I'm using this on an HP / Compaq laptop, and it works great. Couldn't be happier with Kubuntu for desktop Linux (though I would like to see better iPod support, but that's it).
"Intel expects SSE4 optimizations to deliver performance improvements in video authoring, imaging, graphics, video search, off-chip accelerators, gaming and physics applications. Early benchmarks with an SSE4 optimized version of DivX 6.6 Alpha yielded a 116 percent performance improvement due to SSE4 optimizations." Not bad...
Thanks for pointing to the translation at daringfireball.net - that really cuts through the peanut butter.