I'm not the one who had the problem. You don't need to link me the article; I don't care, and it only demonstrates that you completely misunderstood my point.
The point I was trying to make is that while the Linux experts that the poster who had the problem were ranting and raving about how his RAID hardware was "fake RAID" and it only works with Windows drivers and Microsoft is satan, etc...
While they were ranting, it turns out that Linux had a perfectly good alternative that they (apparently) never brought-up.
There is no universal standard GUI toolkit on Windows either. Firefox and Opera use their own.OpenOffice.org uses its own. Even Microsoft Office uses its own.
There is a universal standard GUI toolkit on Windows. You just happened to cherry-pick applications that don't use it.
On the Mac, there is even more GUI dissonance. Current Macs make the typical Linux environment look downright uniform.
WTF? Seriously. WTF? Either you've never used a Mac, or you've never used Linux-- I'm not sure which.
Why is this always considered a problem on Linux but not on Windows or on the Mac?
Because your first sentence was wrong. Windows and Mac have universal standard GUI toolkits. They both have visual IDEs that'll set up the menus and controls to be positioned correctly by default. (Does the Linux world even have visual IDEs for window layout... at all?)
Alternatively, is Linux was so easy to code for that porting your software for that 5% of users was only 5% of the software development effort, you'd see companies scrambling to create Linux software.
That's something the open source community actually controls.
When I double-click the FF icon, it's because *I want to browse the web*. What FF has created is a program where double-clicking the icon will, 98% of the time, allow me to browse the web in seconds, but 2% of the time it takes several minutes to begin browsing the web.
So then, instead of those Linux a-holes making fun of "fake RAID" and refusing to do anything to support or configure it, why don't they be non-a-holes and actually help this person set up software RAID? Especially if (as you claim) software RAID is equivalent in every way?
The UI is a layer of abstractions on top of the OS. Once a UI is ported to an OS, the differences between OSes are (hopefully) concealed from the end user.
That's the point. When I turn on my computer, everything I'm looking at, every piece of software I'm running, and every task I do, it's all the UI. I never see the kernel. I don't care what the kernel is. Not even slightly.
And why should I?
They are still there though. If you use GIMP or Pidgin on Windows, did your computer become Linux because you now have GTK libs? No.
Actually yes, GTK sucks ass on Windows. It doesn't even look close to Windows applications. Even the Open dialog is wrong.
I stopped using Pidgin because it had no support for Windows' tablet features, or voice control features.
And this is the problem, multiple OSes using multiple toolkits, witch each element having it's own quirks.
But none of that code is in the kernel. The kernel's interface is lower than the level your problem's at.
The solution is NOT to merge distros, but there needs to be some rigorous standards for how different implementations can communicate with each other.
You can't write a standard, no matter how rigorous, that allows applications to follow *both* KDE and GNOME's UI guidelines. (As a simple example, button order in dialogs.)
No more than you can write a standard that allows a native Windows look-and-feel on OS X and vice-versa. (For one thing, text boxes behave in many mutually-exclusive ways.)
The best solution is to think of KDE as an OS, and GNOME as a different OS, and then develop towards one or the other. The downside is that your application probably won't run (well at least) on some high percentage of Linux desktops, but the alternative is writing more UI front-ends for Linux than for every other OS combined.
It sounds like this is basically what Chrome is doing. And really, how can the Linux community fault it, considering how things are?
Thank you for being so respectful of my opinions. I can see you're interested in a polite, rational, discussion of the topic.
You may not care about the kernel, but many of us do. Which is why we run Linux (or BSD as the case may be).
And yet, there's nothing the Linux kernel does that other kernels do not do. So while you might be picky about it, the choice really does not matter, in practical terms.
The OS is NOT the UI, that's why they are two different terms with COMPLETELY different definitions.
God forbid I try to use a little hyperbole to get my point across. Obviously I know they're different terms. I forgot how literal-minded everybody on this site is.
Vista is not just the kernel - the kernel is tightly tied in to the user space code. For example, the video driver relaunching? That's not the kernel... the bit of the video driver being relaunched is a user-mode program, communicating with another program that does the graphics rendering, window management, etc.
Trifles. Writing KDE software to handle those situations would be easy, since the kernel has support for them. And if you didn't, you just wouldn't have that particular feature.
Nope. KDE on Linux has the KDE window manager (with different window management behaviour, title bars, effects, etc) and the KDE desktop. KDE on Windows uses the Windows window management and desktop.
So by your reasoning, if you put KDE on Windows, it becomes Linux? Have fun trying to find a usable terminal.. or any stability.
Yes, because the NT kernel is functionally identical to the Linux kernel. If anything, it's more advanced in some areas. For instance, the kernel used in Vista can relaunch video drivers on-the-fly.
For all practical purposes, KDE on Windows is indistinguishable from KDE on Linux. Notice that word: "practical".
You can make snide remarks about NT not being stable all you want, but people who have actually used NT know that you're full of crap. (Or perhaps delusional.)
Kind of off-topic, but how does Jake compare to Windows Live Sync? (Given that I only care about Windows computers, and I don't need cross-platform features.)
One of the problems I have with Live Sync now is that my laptop is frequently used on terrible wifi networks. For example, wifi networks that the laptop can connect to, and sometimes return enough packets to make the computer think it's online, but it's not really online. (The network on the commuter train I ride is notorious.) Anyway, when that happens, Live Sync decides that it should completely forget your username/password combo and I find myself constantly logging back in due to that.
Does Jake handle crappy wifi connections in a more graceful manner?
First off, Qt apps look and operate just fine on Mac and Windows.
No.
Better than GTK+, definitely. Not "just fine." Not even good. Especially on Mac, where they're extremely weird in many fundamental ways.
Typically, people saying things like this about cross-platform frameworks really have little or no experience designing GUI apps-- they don't have the eye for detail that that job requires, and they literally don't see anything wrong with the QT apps. But find an advanced Mac user, show them two UIs and tell them to pick-out the QT one, they'll get it 100% of the time.
So let me ask you this, if Chrome treated each Linux distribution as an OS, would you be happy when Chrome was ported to Ubuntu and not Fedora or SUSE?
Personally I think the whole situation is fubar. There should be three distributions, different-enough to be treated as independent OSes: GNOME, KDE, "Other/Build Your Own".
No, nobody gives a shit what the kernel is-- the OS is the UI, and the UI is the OS. (Think about it: if Apple ported OS X to run on the NT Kernel, would it still be OS X or would it magically turn into Windows?)
The problem is someone has to lose. Like with the sound systems: you can't "Unite" all sound developers by creating a *new* standard. Now you've just added *yet another* sound system to the pile of crap!
What you instead have to do is pick the best standard, and deprecate all the others.
It reminds me of the W3C trying to fix HTML by creating XHTML. Or the whole RSS1/RSS2/ATOM debacle.
Fair point -- I have installed XP only, as Vista sucks too hard to mess with (any OS with built-in DRM is a non-option, not to mention that I don't need a 10GB+ OS lying around).
Out of curiosity, what qualifies as "built-in DRM" in Vista that isn't already in XP?
I imagine Vista is still more painful, since it likely needs sixteen reboots before the drivers all get installed? (And, likely, clicking through EULA's?)
Wow, it takes some balls to admit you've never used Vista in one paragraph, then in the second make up metric fuckloads of bullshit about Vista. Do you think we're all really stupid? Or was that actually the world's worst joke?
It's perfectly ok to compare a release of Ubuntu that's 3 months old with a version of Windows that's 10 years old.
The other way around doesn't work, though! If a Linux user claims that Linux GUIs have always been better than XP, you're not allowed to point out that Linux GUIs completely sucked ass when XP was released in 2001. That's a foul, 5 yard penalty.
Once you know the rules, posting to Slashdot is easy!
From the perspective of an outsider, the American political process presents, through pork-barreling, and massive behind the doors deals, the most corrupt government of the Western world.
The current system basically gives any company with enough money any domain they want
How would you like it to work? (Also: I'm pretty sure the trademark holder can regain control of the domain they trademarked-- wasn't there a big case about that a few years ago?)
and let's not forget the insane anti-gabling domain grab recently.
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So let me get this straight: the iPhone isn't actual progress because the battery is built-in?
Folding bikes are even better as you can also use public transport when needed.
What city do you live in that doesn't have bike racks on buses, or bike storage in trains?
If your buses don't look like this: http://www.kreikenbaum.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/bus_seattle.png
And your trains don't look like this: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2174/2498748942_c901404f13.jpg?v=0
You're doing something wrong. :)
I'm not the one who had the problem. You don't need to link me the article; I don't care, and it only demonstrates that you completely misunderstood my point.
The point I was trying to make is that while the Linux experts that the poster who had the problem were ranting and raving about how his RAID hardware was "fake RAID" and it only works with Windows drivers and Microsoft is satan, etc...
While they were ranting, it turns out that Linux had a perfectly good alternative that they (apparently) never brought-up.
One year it was just the word blah blah blah over and over with keywords,
What the hell does that even mean?
There is no universal standard GUI toolkit on Windows either. Firefox and Opera use their own.OpenOffice.org uses its own. Even Microsoft Office uses its own.
There is a universal standard GUI toolkit on Windows. You just happened to cherry-pick applications that don't use it.
On the Mac, there is even more GUI dissonance. Current Macs make the typical Linux environment look downright uniform.
WTF? Seriously. WTF? Either you've never used a Mac, or you've never used Linux-- I'm not sure which.
Why is this always considered a problem on Linux but not on Windows or on the Mac?
Because your first sentence was wrong. Windows and Mac have universal standard GUI toolkits. They both have visual IDEs that'll set up the menus and controls to be positioned correctly by default. (Does the Linux world even have visual IDEs for window layout... at all?)
Alternatively, is Linux was so easy to code for that porting your software for that 5% of users was only 5% of the software development effort, you'd see companies scrambling to create Linux software.
That's something the open source community actually controls.
The Firefox updater is a pain in the ass.
When I double-click the FF icon, it's because *I want to browse the web*. What FF has created is a program where double-clicking the icon will, 98% of the time, allow me to browse the web in seconds, but 2% of the time it takes several minutes to begin browsing the web.
That sucks.
So then, instead of those Linux a-holes making fun of "fake RAID" and refusing to do anything to support or configure it, why don't they be non-a-holes and actually help this person set up software RAID? Especially if (as you claim) software RAID is equivalent in every way?
Are you saying that "just fine" equates to "indistinguishable from whatever Apple uses?"
Duh? Isn't that the *point* of the entire exercise?
The UI is a layer of abstractions on top of the OS. Once a UI is ported to an OS, the differences between OSes are (hopefully) concealed from the end user.
That's the point. When I turn on my computer, everything I'm looking at, every piece of software I'm running, and every task I do, it's all the UI. I never see the kernel. I don't care what the kernel is. Not even slightly.
And why should I?
They are still there though. If you use GIMP or Pidgin on Windows, did your computer become Linux because you now have GTK libs? No.
Actually yes, GTK sucks ass on Windows. It doesn't even look close to Windows applications. Even the Open dialog is wrong.
I stopped using Pidgin because it had no support for Windows' tablet features, or voice control features.
And this is the problem, multiple OSes using multiple toolkits, witch each element having it's own quirks.
But none of that code is in the kernel. The kernel's interface is lower than the level your problem's at.
That's the exact problem:
The solution is NOT to merge distros, but there needs to be some rigorous standards for how different implementations can communicate with each other.
You can't write a standard, no matter how rigorous, that allows applications to follow *both* KDE and GNOME's UI guidelines. (As a simple example, button order in dialogs.)
No more than you can write a standard that allows a native Windows look-and-feel on OS X and vice-versa. (For one thing, text boxes behave in many mutually-exclusive ways.)
The best solution is to think of KDE as an OS, and GNOME as a different OS, and then develop towards one or the other. The downside is that your application probably won't run (well at least) on some high percentage of Linux desktops, but the alternative is writing more UI front-ends for Linux than for every other OS combined.
It sounds like this is basically what Chrome is doing. And really, how can the Linux community fault it, considering how things are?
You sir, are a moron.
Thank you for being so respectful of my opinions. I can see you're interested in a polite, rational, discussion of the topic.
You may not care about the kernel, but many of us do. Which is why we run Linux (or BSD as the case may be).
And yet, there's nothing the Linux kernel does that other kernels do not do. So while you might be picky about it, the choice really does not matter, in practical terms.
The OS is NOT the UI, that's why they are two different terms with COMPLETELY different definitions.
God forbid I try to use a little hyperbole to get my point across. Obviously I know they're different terms. I forgot how literal-minded everybody on this site is.
Vista is not just the kernel - the kernel is tightly tied in to the user space code. For example, the video driver relaunching? That's not the kernel... the bit of the video driver being relaunched is a user-mode program, communicating with another program that does the graphics rendering, window management, etc.
Trifles. Writing KDE software to handle those situations would be easy, since the kernel has support for them. And if you didn't, you just wouldn't have that particular feature.
Nope. KDE on Linux has the KDE window manager (with different window management behaviour, title bars, effects, etc) and the KDE desktop. KDE on Windows uses the Windows window management and desktop.
Yes, but it doesn't *have* to.
So by your reasoning, if you put KDE on Windows, it becomes Linux? Have fun trying to find a usable terminal.. or any stability.
Yes, because the NT kernel is functionally identical to the Linux kernel. If anything, it's more advanced in some areas. For instance, the kernel used in Vista can relaunch video drivers on-the-fly.
For all practical purposes, KDE on Windows is indistinguishable from KDE on Linux. Notice that word: "practical".
You can make snide remarks about NT not being stable all you want, but people who have actually used NT know that you're full of crap. (Or perhaps delusional.)
Kind of off-topic, but how does Jake compare to Windows Live Sync? (Given that I only care about Windows computers, and I don't need cross-platform features.)
One of the problems I have with Live Sync now is that my laptop is frequently used on terrible wifi networks. For example, wifi networks that the laptop can connect to, and sometimes return enough packets to make the computer think it's online, but it's not really online. (The network on the commuter train I ride is notorious.) Anyway, when that happens, Live Sync decides that it should completely forget your username/password combo and I find myself constantly logging back in due to that.
Does Jake handle crappy wifi connections in a more graceful manner?
First off, Qt apps look and operate just fine on Mac and Windows.
No.
Better than GTK+, definitely. Not "just fine." Not even good. Especially on Mac, where they're extremely weird in many fundamental ways.
Typically, people saying things like this about cross-platform frameworks really have little or no experience designing GUI apps-- they don't have the eye for detail that that job requires, and they literally don't see anything wrong with the QT apps. But find an advanced Mac user, show them two UIs and tell them to pick-out the QT one, they'll get it 100% of the time.
So let me ask you this, if Chrome treated each Linux distribution as an OS, would you be happy when Chrome was ported to Ubuntu and not Fedora or SUSE?
Personally I think the whole situation is fubar. There should be three distributions, different-enough to be treated as independent OSes: GNOME, KDE, "Other/Build Your Own".
No, nobody gives a shit what the kernel is-- the OS is the UI, and the UI is the OS. (Think about it: if Apple ported OS X to run on the NT Kernel, would it still be OS X or would it magically turn into Windows?)
PC vendors are missing a gold opportunity here. They could adopt a GNU/Linux distribution and make it attractive to the masses,
And that benefits them... how?
Yes, you're correct, they *could* do that. (If you're just looking for confirmation.) But why would they? What's the business case for it?
The problem is someone has to lose. Like with the sound systems: you can't "Unite" all sound developers by creating a *new* standard. Now you've just added *yet another* sound system to the pile of crap!
What you instead have to do is pick the best standard, and deprecate all the others.
It reminds me of the W3C trying to fix HTML by creating XHTML. Or the whole RSS1/RSS2/ATOM debacle.
That's *a* citation, but since it doesn't mention Vista Basic at all, I have no idea what it's supposed to be a citation of.
To be clear, what we're looking for is evidence that Vista Basic "failed" (relative to other editions of Vista.) Your citation doesn't provide that.
Fair point -- I have installed XP only, as Vista sucks too hard to mess with (any OS with built-in DRM is a non-option, not to mention that I don't need a 10GB+ OS lying around).
Out of curiosity, what qualifies as "built-in DRM" in Vista that isn't already in XP?
I imagine Vista is still more painful, since it likely needs sixteen reboots before the drivers all get installed? (And, likely, clicking through EULA's?)
Wow, it takes some balls to admit you've never used Vista in one paragraph, then in the second make up metric fuckloads of bullshit about Vista. Do you think we're all really stupid? Or was that actually the world's worst joke?
This is Slashdot.
It's perfectly ok to compare a release of Ubuntu that's 3 months old with a version of Windows that's 10 years old.
The other way around doesn't work, though! If a Linux user claims that Linux GUIs have always been better than XP, you're not allowed to point out that Linux GUIs completely sucked ass when XP was released in 2001. That's a foul, 5 yard penalty.
Once you know the rules, posting to Slashdot is easy!
From the perspective of an outsider, the American political process presents, through pork-barreling, and massive behind the doors deals, the most corrupt government of the Western world.
Italy is in the western world.
The current system basically gives any company with enough money any domain they want
How would you like it to work? (Also: I'm pretty sure the trademark holder can regain control of the domain they trademarked-- wasn't there a big case about that a few years ago?)
and let's not forget the insane anti-gabling domain grab recently.
Elaborate?
Good thought, but the summary specifically says he's coding Windows C++ programs. In which case, 2MB is such a drop in the bucket it doesn't matter.