Businesses don't run based on ideals, they run based on productivity. If applications like Open Office fail to open an Office document even 1% of the time then they're useless if that document is really something you need to open. Gimp still isn't a satisfactory replacement for Photoshop. Sound in flash still doesn't work correctly out of the box on Ubuntu systems, there's no mp3 support by default, nor does Quicktime really work. There's still not a decent movie player. Having worked in a company that has went through 2 O/s changes (Windows 3.1 to Win NT then to Win XP) if a company wants a change of OS they will make account for little things like a document that needs to open. For most back office/call centre operations linux is ready and most documents that would be used is not complex enough for it not to work on the likes of open-office.
As to mp3 IIRC, this is due to licencing/legal issues. I've just played an mp3 file after a newly installed Ubuntu 8.04 and was prompted to download the appropriate codec. This downloaded automatically and was able to play file in about a minute after clicking on it, so there is no issue there.
This doesn't even begin to take into account that most businesses I've come across use some kind of custom industry application. CAD applications, specialized accounting applications, lending an loan applications, guess what they're all written for? Windows. Linux still doesn't work for those customers. Use Windows for specialist roles and linux for generic roles like back office/call centre.
If the Linux community wants to advance they're going to have to give up on some of their ideals and actually provide what people are looking for, which is a stable operating systems that run applications people actually want to use with a consistent look and feel everywhere. I ran Ubuntu for over a year and reverted to XP because I couldn't deal with the slowdowns for no reason, application crashes, incompatibilities, mystery feature additions and removals based on the whims of the developers (what's pigeon going to include or disable this week!), and decisions that were made purely for philosophical reasons (no mp3 support by default? please.) For some strange reason open source applications like abiword/gimp/firefox work and look a lot better on Windows than on Ubuntu.
If the big companies are serious about getting linux on the desktop then they need to co-operate in building a GUI that is good for business, the Pportland project is a step in the right direction. Whatever the complaints about the bloat in Windows, it is a great productivity tool for business where there are many ways to get things (espeically repetitive tasks) done quickly and if linux wants to get a foothold then they need to emulate this. As for use at home, apart from the wee niggles mentioned, linux has been ready for years.
You can run Ubuntu off the live CD and save files to the partition that contains XP. The XP partition will be stored in/media/sda1 or something similar, not c:\ or My documents.
Re:Has anyone tried a dist-upgrade?
on
Ubuntu 8.04 Released
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· Score: 2, Informative
I did a dist-upgrade a few days ago and everything works fine apart from mucking up the screen resolution (everything looks so big). As it took 500+Mb to download, for the sake of an extra couple of hundred meg, you can download the ISO and have a CD for backup.
You can try it out via the 'wubi' option which installs ubuntu in your XP parition. This bypasses the difficult part that noobs experience of having to resize and create new partitions. After it is installed you boot into windows and are presented with an text option screen to either load windows or ubuntu. This is the same screen after a system crash and you have an option to go into safe mode.
I'm not trying to start some transatlantic flame war but it is frustrating sometimes when you read this on various websites and mentioned in popular US TV programmes like 24.
I agree, FOSS has nothing to do with mainstream politics and to suggest so through this article is reading too much into things.
In the blogging sphere there is a growing movement of the left and right that transgresses nationality whereby support is mobilised to browse sites that have features like voting to promote their agenda. It would be interesting to see the nationality of the voters as well as the browser and operating system they use.
Although I'm not from US, I have read enough comments on websites to know that Americans have this irrational fear of anything socialist. If you want the average American to think negative about something you label it socialist.
How many kilograms of food will be needed to feed each rabbit need to produce the 7 kilograms of rabbit meat?
There is also a possibility of an ecological disaster waiting to happen in the form of an explosion of the rabbit population due to its large reproductive nature. If they got into the wild, they would strip the land of any agriculture left and the people would be far worse off than there are now. The same thing happened when rabbits were introduced to Australia.
The best solution is for North Korea to stop feeding it's military machine and feed it's people.
Disruptive technology waiting in the wings?
on
No Love For The Blu-Ray
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Isn't the decreasing cost of increased broadband bandwidth and increased hard disk space will eventually make HD disc formats obsolete?
Do we really care about the fate of overpaid record company execs and overpaid popstars?
To me DRM is about a way to extort as much money out of the consumer than it is about combating piracy. The record companies are defeating piracy by going after the P2P networks.
I agree there is a need to deal with the changing nature of distributing music and how it is listened to but should big record companies deserve a part of the money generated? Are they relevant?
Small independent record companies and individual artists who are closer to their fanbase will be the real winners in the future.
True, it also has to be remembered also that most money is made from songwriting loyalties. Although most of these new manufactured artists have million selling singles, platinum albums and sellout stadium tours they make very little money.
All the major artists are bumping up the price of tickets to live shows due to falling CD sales. As an example a colleague in at work spent about £140 for a ticket to see Madonna.
The Big stadium rock bands are becoming a thing of the past thanks to the record companies.
The future could be more bright with a bigger variety of bands constantly touring as a way of promoting their music. It means better quality of music getting released and for people to hear music they way it should be, live. As this will encourage loyalty and hit on illegal downloads.
True, as well as a new means of distributing music, there is also a new means of listening to music. The music industries bread and butter is album sales. Their traditional model is to sign artists to release singles to promote albums. The public are slowly moving away from albums and want to listen to music the way they want. I think the music industry needs to address this issue as well.
I believe a lot of major artists are rely on touring to make money rather than record sales. Maybe in the future artists will provide free tracks of their music to promote these tours.
I know record companies are unable to adapt to changing technology them but I do feel they are in part to blame for the mess they're in.
If you look at the history of the big bands and solo artists, the record companies biggest earners, they had spent 3, 4 years, sometimes more touring, building up a loyal fanbase before they got a record deal. These bands/artists created great singles and more importantly great albums, which is where they and the record companies make the money. Even when the bands were having low points in their careers, money was still pouring in from back cataloges.
Nowadays, the record companies manufacture bands and artists through hype and televison programmes. They release a few singles to hype up album sales. These artists have only a shelf life of two or three albums and they're dropped.
The problem is that the people who like these artists are not interested in albums, they're interested in the songs. Who wants to spend £15 on an album when they can get the tracks for nothing? There are people who will pay for these downloads but again, they're interested in the song, not the artist and mostly likely won't buy any more of the artists songs.
IMHO, the record companies would still have problem if the technology of illegal downloads did not exist. Like the film industry it is a convienant excuse for failed managerial decisions.
It also makes comments about Theatrical Exhibition Losses.
The text automatically assumes that if people did not have pirate DVD's they would flock to the cinema. With movies coming out on DVD for rental or buying in x months and on satellite x months later then TV x months after that, would they really go to the cinema?
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC, FLTK which EDE is based on, has a lot less widgets than other TK's. I'm not sure if this is due to speed's sake or maturity of project.
As to mp3 IIRC, this is due to licencing/legal issues. I've just played an mp3 file after a newly installed Ubuntu 8.04 and was prompted to download the appropriate codec. This downloaded automatically and was able to play file in about a minute after clicking on it, so there is no issue there. This doesn't even begin to take into account that most businesses I've come across use some kind of custom industry application. CAD applications, specialized accounting applications, lending an loan applications, guess what they're all written for? Windows. Linux still doesn't work for those customers. Use Windows for specialist roles and linux for generic roles like back office/call centre. If the Linux community wants to advance they're going to have to give up on some of their ideals and actually provide what people are looking for, which is a stable operating systems that run applications people actually want to use with a consistent look and feel everywhere. I ran Ubuntu for over a year and reverted to XP because I couldn't deal with the slowdowns for no reason, application crashes, incompatibilities, mystery feature additions and removals based on the whims of the developers (what's pigeon going to include or disable this week!), and decisions that were made purely for philosophical reasons (no mp3 support by default? please.) For some strange reason open source applications like abiword/gimp/firefox work and look a lot better on Windows than on Ubuntu.
If the big companies are serious about getting linux on the desktop then they need to co-operate in building a GUI that is good for business, the Pportland project is a step in the right direction. Whatever the complaints about the bloat in Windows, it is a great productivity tool for business where there are many ways to get things (espeically repetitive tasks) done quickly and if linux wants to get a foothold then they need to emulate this. As for use at home, apart from the wee niggles mentioned, linux has been ready for years.
When I upgraded Xubuntu, a kernel upgrade was performed so there should be some sort of upgrade?
You can run Ubuntu off the live CD and save files to the partition that contains XP. The XP partition will be stored in /media/sda1 or something similar, not c:\ or My documents.
I did a dist-upgrade a few days ago and everything works fine apart from mucking up the screen resolution (everything looks so big). As it took 500+Mb to download, for the sake of an extra couple of hundred meg, you can download the ISO and have a CD for backup.
You can try it out via the 'wubi' option which installs ubuntu in your XP parition. This bypasses the difficult part that noobs experience of having to resize and create new partitions. After it is installed you boot into windows and are presented with an text option screen to either load windows or ubuntu. This is the same screen after a system crash and you have an option to go into safe mode.
You can change to Firefox 2 in a couple of clicks (sarc) although that's too difficult for the average user(/sarc)
Damm I need to use preview more often and stop using the sarcastic tag as it doesn't show in slashdot
You can change to Firefox 2 in a couple of clicks although that's too difficult for the average user
I'm not trying to start some transatlantic flame war but it is frustrating sometimes when you read this on various websites and mentioned in popular US TV programmes like 24.
Exact same goes for some sections of Americans, think Eurabia.
I agree, FOSS has nothing to do with mainstream politics and to suggest so through this article is reading too much into things.
In the blogging sphere there is a growing movement of the left and right that transgresses nationality whereby support is mobilised to browse sites that have features like voting to promote their agenda. It would be interesting to see the nationality of the voters as well as the browser and operating system they use.
Although I'm not from US, I have read enough comments on websites to know that Americans have this irrational fear of anything socialist. If you want the average American to think negative about something you label it socialist.
finally porn has been ported to *nix.
How many kilograms of food will be needed to feed each rabbit need to produce the 7 kilograms of rabbit meat? There is also a possibility of an ecological disaster waiting to happen in the form of an explosion of the rabbit population due to its large reproductive nature. If they got into the wild, they would strip the land of any agriculture left and the people would be far worse off than there are now. The same thing happened when rabbits were introduced to Australia. The best solution is for North Korea to stop feeding it's military machine and feed it's people.
Isn't the decreasing cost of increased broadband bandwidth and increased hard disk space will eventually make HD disc formats obsolete?
To be sitting on the fourth largest oil reserve in the world.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15175836/site/newsweek /
BTW, hilarious film, never laughed so much in my whole life!!!
Do we really care about the fate of overpaid record company execs and overpaid popstars?
To me DRM is about a way to extort as much money out of the consumer than it is about combating piracy. The record companies are defeating piracy by going after the P2P networks.
I agree there is a need to deal with the changing nature of distributing music and how it is listened to but should big record companies deserve a part of the money generated? Are they relevant?
Small independent record companies and individual artists who are closer to their fanbase will be the real winners in the future.
True, it also has to be remembered also that most money is made from songwriting loyalties. Although most of these new manufactured artists have million selling singles, platinum albums and sellout stadium tours they make very little money. All the major artists are bumping up the price of tickets to live shows due to falling CD sales. As an example a colleague in at work spent about £140 for a ticket to see Madonna.
I don't think this will work because it will produce a market that will produce products that nobody wants.
The Big stadium rock bands are becoming a thing of the past thanks to the record companies. The future could be more bright with a bigger variety of bands constantly touring as a way of promoting their music. It means better quality of music getting released and for people to hear music they way it should be, live. As this will encourage loyalty and hit on illegal downloads.
True, as well as a new means of distributing music, there is also a new means of listening to music. The music industries bread and butter is album sales. Their traditional model is to sign artists to release singles to promote albums. The public are slowly moving away from albums and want to listen to music the way they want. I think the music industry needs to address this issue as well.
I believe a lot of major artists are rely on touring to make money rather than record sales. Maybe in the future artists will provide free tracks of their music to promote these tours.
I know record companies are unable to adapt to changing technology them but I do feel they are in part to blame for the mess they're in. If you look at the history of the big bands and solo artists, the record companies biggest earners, they had spent 3, 4 years, sometimes more touring, building up a loyal fanbase before they got a record deal. These bands/artists created great singles and more importantly great albums, which is where they and the record companies make the money. Even when the bands were having low points in their careers, money was still pouring in from back cataloges. Nowadays, the record companies manufacture bands and artists through hype and televison programmes. They release a few singles to hype up album sales. These artists have only a shelf life of two or three albums and they're dropped. The problem is that the people who like these artists are not interested in albums, they're interested in the songs. Who wants to spend £15 on an album when they can get the tracks for nothing? There are people who will pay for these downloads but again, they're interested in the song, not the artist and mostly likely won't buy any more of the artists songs. IMHO, the record companies would still have problem if the technology of illegal downloads did not exist. Like the film industry it is a convienant excuse for failed managerial decisions.
er, like this? http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/
It also makes comments about Theatrical Exhibition Losses. The text automatically assumes that if people did not have pirate DVD's they would flock to the cinema. With movies coming out on DVD for rental or buying in x months and on satellite x months later then TV x months after that, would they really go to the cinema?