Submitted by This light hearted review is a look at how a girl who uses Windows (and is non-technical) deals with using Fedora Linux instead. In fact, she likes it so much, she uses it all the time now. If she can use Fedora Linux, anyone can.
Windows girl goes Fedora
About The Author
Adam Scheinberg
Technology Executive • Web Developer • Father • Foodie • Music Snob • OS enthusiast
Follow me on Mastodon @[email protected]
245 Comments
2005-08-17 7:56 pm
Anonymous
I’m done with you, moron. You’ve conveniently ignored all SP2-related points, because you just got served.
Whether or not you believe me has nothing to do with the facts. XP is a stable operating system. 99% of blue screens are caused by poorly-written software that runs at a low level (Norton Antivirus), or poorly-written drivers (of which there are many).
Fool.
2005-08-17 8:26 pm
Moulinneuf
“I’m done with you”
You said that before …
“moron.”
I clearly established that you where the moron and a couple other bad adjectives.
“You’ve conveniently ignored all SP2-related points”
The problem you have is , you think once you wrote something that thats the final point and that your not wrong , when its not the final point or a point at all and you where proven wrong in your affirmations.
“because you just got served.”
Someone whatch too much movie ( you ) …
“Whether or not you believe me ”
I dont , its clearly stated and established …
“has nothing to do with the facts.”
Start making facts and I will agree with you.
“XP is a stable operating system.”
No , thats why its not used at all on super computers :
http://www.forbes.com/home/enterprisetech/2005/03/15/cz_dl_0315linu…
Why its a minority on server …
And if it where not illegally shipped as default on most OEM it would not be that much in use.
“99% of blue screens are caused by poorly-written software that runs at a low level (Norton Antivirus)”
I tought it whas stable and never crashed … Now you got to make up your mind. A real secure OS is never crashed by a process or a software.
“or poorly-written drivers (of which there are many).”
Your on a roll , now its poorly written drivers who are the problems. But Microsoft windows XP is not at fault , no since SP 2 which came after the final release and the SP 1 is going to fix once again all your problem for a fee.
But windows xp is puuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrfect.
– Moulinneuf
2005-08-17 8:34 pm
Anonymous
I found child pornography on your computer — go masturbate to it.
(Hint: If you don’t get it, I’m not going to argue any more with you, because you quite clearly are mentally disabled, and incapable of drawing parallels when stating points.)
2005-08-17 7:21 pm
ma_d
I’m sick of voting down your rude, inflammatory, insulting, or vulgar posts. Frankly, it’s time the moderators here did something.
I can understand an occasional insult, fun poking, rude joke, vulrarity, or other thing that you shouldn’t consistently do; but frankly you do it consistently.
This is rediculous. A nice article posted about a girl using Linux and being happy. And it explodes into a “linux sucks” “windows sucks” crapshoot. And of course, every once and a while you get someone who doesn’t understand the usefulness of a hearty discussion who accuses both sides of being religious.
I hope the moderators see that this site is slowly turning into slashdot now, because eventually they won’t be able to get back the people who make for the good discussions.
2005-08-17 7:22 pm
Moulinneuf
“Listen up”
I do listen , I just dont take anything of what you say seriously at all , its all worthless garbage and lying.
“Moulenfool … ”
Its Moulinneuf , what can I say I have no problem identifying my reply with my real name and with who I really am , thats because I dont lie and bulshit , now it seem to me you have a major problem with copy paste and maturity , not even going to discuss your swearing …
“What you showed me was Windows XP with SP2 integrated.”
So normally when you download it because you already paid for it to be broken its not integrated ? Good to know …
“You would be buying the full Windows XP product there.”
So , what your saying is that people who bought previous version of Windows XP where not entitled to the full version too ?
“SP2 *is* a free download”
Like I said please provide the link where I can get my copy of the boxed set for free I showed , which btw show you as an ignorant liar …
“and has always been.”
Free for me means freedom , I only accept and tolerate the second use of the term Free for when I can take a copy at anytime because it as no cost.
” I ordered two SP2 CD packets for free from Microsoft”
Why do you need to place an order if they are free ?
“without having to enter any kind of serial. ”
Yes , Microsoft partners when for resalling dont have a problem with serial …
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Anonymous
You are seriously a moron. What you linked to on Amazon.com was Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2. What that means is that when you install Windows from the CD provided in that package, you no longer have to install SP2 because it’s already integrated. This was not JUST Service Pack 2. It was Windows XP Professional. Get that straight.
For people who have Windows XP or Windows XP SP1 CDs, they have to download the SP2 binary from Microsoft’s site, or use Windows Update, which is available free of charge.
And the reason I “placed an order” was because I have to type in my shipping information and then confirm. The total cost of the order was $0.00.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/sp2/cdorder/en… — There you go.
How are you going to twist this around now?
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Moulinneuf
“You are seriously a moron.”
No that would be you 😉
“What you linked to on Amazon.com was Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2.”
Yes SP 2 beeing sold , thats one example , we can go and see the brand name and there new offering , if its the same why are they specificaly nothing SP2 on there newer model :
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_series.do?store…
If the OEM are paying for it to ship with there hardware , it must be a little more then just updates.
“What that means is that when you install Windows from the CD provided in that package, you no longer have to install SP2 because it’s already integrated. ”
So , in order to get a fully integrated SP2 you have to pay again to obtain it …
“This was not JUST Service Pack 2. It was Windows XP Professional. Get that straight. ”
Actually I showed Home and Professionnal SP2 full version , but hey according to you there not sold , its free …
From you link :
“This CD includes the same Service Pack 2 software that is available for download from Microsoft Update.”
Thats not the same as a Microsoft Windows XP full version already patched for free , since you claim SP2 is free.
“How are you going to twist this around now?”
I am not twisting anything , its called reality and truth and prooving you as a liar , someone who dont have XP will not be able to install SP2 from the link you gave as its not really SP 2 , its only some not integrated updates.
Stop , living in your little bubble , its you , not I, who made the false claim that SP2 whas free.
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Anonymous
Jesus Christ, you are one dumb FUCK.
“Integrated” means nothing more than that the system files are already installed at SP2-level. The end result is no different than patching an existing system with SP2. If you’re STILL not convinced, you can create an integrated Windows XP + SP2 installation CD as long as you have an original XP CD to start with. It’s called “slip-streaming”. Search on Google for instructions.
Service Pack 2 is free. You can download it. You can order a CD from Microsoft for $0.00. You can get a copy from a friend. COMPLETELY FREE OF CHARGE. Get that through your thick skull. HP is advertising a laptop with Windows XP at a service pack level of 2 pre-installed. Amazon is selling Windows XP with Service Pack 2 integrated. They key phrase here is “Windows XP”. They are not selling Service Pack 2 — they are selling WINDOWS XP.
Once again …
There is no cost for obtaining Service Pack 2.
Can someone please explain to me how stupid this guy can get?
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2005-08-17 9:07 pm
Finalzone. If you’re STILL not convinced, you can create an integrated Windows XP + SP2 installation CD as long as you have an original XP CD to start with. It’s called “slip-streaming”. Search on Google for instructions.
Did you realized you just validated Moulinneuf’s point? SP2 is free as long you have Windows XP installed on your system. It is useless for people who still use Windows 9x and Windows 2000.
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Anonymous
Well no kidding. What use does someone who is running non-XP have for XP’s Service Pack 2? Are you insane?
Moulenfool: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/winx…
Click Download. There you go. What are you going to invent now?
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Moulinneuf
“Well no kidding.”
Ho , so far you where kidding , ok …
“What use does someone who is running non-XP have for XP’s Service Pack 2?”
Never heard of Dual boot ? since you falsely claim its free , some of us like to give more to our clients , its added value. Any version of SP2 is not free , you already paid for it or if you whant a complete version you have to pay again for it …
I dont see a Free full version of windows XP SP2 on your link , I can be blind sometime please provide the link to the Full XP + SP 2 version which is free as you said all SP 2 is free.
“What are you going to invent now?”
Nothing , I dont invent when on a forum.
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Moulinneuf
I am not replying to you in this thread anymore , youve been proved wrong on all your lies.
-Moulinneuf
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Moulinneuf
I tought you where done … I guess your not a man of you word.
“Jesus Christ”
Swearing and blashpheming the name of the son of god dont make your point valid or true … Please stop that , have some respect for others religion.
“you are one dumb FUCK.”
No , but thanks for personnaly insulting me.
“”Integrated” means nothing more than that the system files are already installed at SP2-level.”
No , but then it would tak too long to explain it to you.
“The end result is no different than patching an existing system with SP2. ”
No , again would be too log to explain and show you the difference.
“If you’re STILL not convinced, you can create an integrated Windows XP + SP2 installation CD as long as you have an original XP CD to start with.”
But SP2 is free according to you why would I need to do that again when its availaible for free ? Why do I need to Buy XP and then pay to get SP2 instalation CD ? when according to you its free ?
“It’s called “slip-streaming”. Search on Google for instructions.”
ok :
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp
“That’s because XP SP2 is a huge change from the original shipping version of XP, offering as many new features and capabilities as a major new Windows version.”
Look like another expert ( beside me ) is disgreeing with your “its just a free Update”.
“Service Pack 2 is free. You can download it.”
Provide the link , really because my client will send you a Thank you not for not having to pay for it since its free.
“You can order a CD from Microsoft for $0.00.”
Again , provide the link to the full version , its free …
“You can get a copy from a friend. ”
No , thats illegal … everyone knows you cant make copy legally of anything made by Microsoft.
“They key phrase here is “Windows XP”.”
No , its SP 2 … as its whats I am discussing.
“They are not selling Service Pack 2”
Why dont you try your free on them and take a pack and go home without paying for it …
“There is no cost for obtaining Service Pack 2. ”
Buying XP is a cost …
“Can someone please explain to me how stupid this guy can get?”
I aint stupid , far from it , I am actually showing why Fedora is Free and XP is not :
– Full Version upgrade is free(as in freedom and cost)
– You can Legally make a copy and share it or resalle it
– If you pay or donate your money will serve to help Billions of others , they whont make some people just more richer.
– Moulinneuf
2005-08-17 7:49 am
Anonymous
They write a program, say an accounting program which is quite useful and nice, but they prefer “rapid application development” with Windows .NET environment because their boss never heard of the merits of platform independent development before (python & wxWidgets or C++ & QT for example).
So they bring out a program for Windows only. Some guys from the open source software camp see that app working, and think it would be cool to have that app for their platform as well, but, alas, there is no easy way to get it for Linux. Not enough of a market.
So these guys begin working on their own accounting program, it is alpha and really lousy first, but gradually it becomes usable. As soon as the 1.0 release is out, someone ports it to Windows. And to HPUX. And to Solaris. And to OSX. And to BSD.
Now the commercial software vendor suddenly has a problem. Just because he originally did not make his software multi-platform, he left some demand unsatisfied. Someone popped up who satisfied that demand. Now the software vendor has to compete with something that has the advantages of being gratis and platform independent. This software vendor is pushed by an open source software to deliver MUCH better software than the open source software is. This is expensive.
You can see that when you look at the development speed of KOffice. When they started KOffice there were several people on the team of KWord only. As soon as Sun made StarOffice available gratis for download, the number of people working on KOffice reduced, when OpenOffice.org was released under the GPL the development of KOffice almost stopped for some time.
Only lately they picked up some speed, but development for sure is slower than it would be in the absence of OpenOffice.org.
2005-08-17 7:54 am
Anonymous
* Beagle.
* The choice of window managers.
* Choice of Office suite. (openOffice,Koffice,Abiword)
* Package management. (apt-get, emerge, pacman)
This a serious killer app. Windows will never be able
to match installing new software with this much ease.
* amarok – kde media player.
There are lots of linux only killer apps. It’s just that hardly anyone from the windows world knows about them…because they are linux only.
– Jessta
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Anonymous
“Windows will never be able
to match installing new software with this much ease.”
What about software not in repositories?
I have minislack and I had to install Mplayer from source, it’s not as easy as next-next-finish -routine like in many windows applications.
2005-08-17 9:49 am
Anonymous
Win9x, WinNT, Win2k, WinXP etc. are all a lot more compatible on the application level (binarycompatible), when compared to all the linux distributions, unless you start statical linking on linux, which is then however automatically disliked because it is too “inefficient”.
At least the few big ones are still incompatible enough.
Source code compatibility doesn’t cut it completely!
2005-08-17 10:05 am
Anonymous
Of course who am I to say what one should or should not do, but IMhO there are too many of these types of articles. Next I expect articles to appear like “5-year old installs Gentoo and sticks with it!” or “Toddler goes with Linux From Scratch”.
It’s a laudable effort and a good way to study usability ‘IRL’, but despite that it is a little bit thin on content. Things like the ‘Virtual Desktop’ comment, those are the REAL interesting comments. For an end-user, if something *appears* to be broken, for them it’s broken. And it’s them the program was created for *in the first place*.
Mounting partitions (in this case: NTFS):
Most modern desktop distributions (Mandriva, Linspire, SuSe, Xandros) already find and mount the windows partition *for you* at startup.
As for the terminal, no ‘newbie’ end-user should have to worry about the command line. It should be there for if they are feeling *adventurous*, or as a last resort (sometimes necessary, e.g. for installing the latest nvidia drivers).
She got a lot of helf on the forums, which is great. She put in a lot of effort, which is also great. Even greater, however, would be if she would not have had these problems in the first place. Linspire gets it right here. Even with Suse, my preferred OS, you have to go to the additional trouble of adding Packman’s website as an installation source to Yast, then install Mplayer, Mplayer-plugin and some other packages (win32codecs etc.) from within Yast.
Also, people take it for granted that other people know a lot of things they might not. In Gaim or Kopete, or aMSN -or whatever- you don’t need to add your contacts into them manually, since they are stored (if I’m wrong, please s.o. correct me) somewhere in a central place by microsoft. Why not explain it somewhere when the account(s) are/is being set up?
These kind of ‘use cases’ are invaluable tools for improving the usability of Linux on the desktop. Start from a specific scenario and see how well your user fares with a particular Linux setup.
2005-08-17 10:07 am
Anonymous
“Sure, the package will be a big behemoth (40Megs or so for Adobe Reader?!?), but well, windows binary apps are always like that, you’d think people are accustomed to this practice.”
70 MB last time I looked…
2005-08-17 12:14 pm
Spike
Another review of Linux from someone who uses it for the most basic things — Web browsing, e-Mail, IM and Image Editing. Things which can be done with most Linux distros out of the box.
Probably didn’t get stuck trying to compile an audio-tracking application or getting her favourite windows game to run on WINE since her needs are obviously less than a lot of us.
There are an AWFUL LOT of us out here that use a computer for more than these basic things and Linux may well not serve our needs. Saying ‘if she can use it, anyone can’ is probably true for those people that use it for the basics.
That does not cover ‘anyone’.
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ma_d
I believe she said that if she can use it anyone can. She did not say “if it’s good enough for me it’s good enough for anyone.”
There’s a clear difference.
Using a computer is not defined by what you do on it but simply by an ability to do some basic tasks on it. Of course, professionals should probably almost always use what their company wishes them to use; unless they’ve found something immensely more useful. Amatuers should use what they want to use.
I do a lot more on my computer than she does, and I find linux to be helpful for me:
Mostly development.
E-mail, web of course.
Checking out an occasional video.
Jukebox.
Some minor image editing.
Music ripping.
Occasional game, but usually games like wesnoth. I have a windows load for games like UT and Doom3.
Lots o’ irc and im
.You’ll always find a niche for every platform on the market that it’s simply not the best for and often that it’s just awful for. But that’s no reason to say it’s not ready for most people…
2005-08-17 1:44 pm
Anonymous
One talking of service pack 2 as being a free download for existing xp user, the other one about the complete product (windows xp + sp2) … *sigh*
2005-08-17 6:00 pm
2005-08-17 9:57 pm
hobgoblin
Moulinneuf, Linux Is Poo, the round is over. back to your corners.
and if your interested in keeping this fight going. take it to slashdot, the battlefield section of the ars technica forum, or maybe desktoplinux.com.
but ANYWHERE BUT HERE! get it?
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Moulinneuf
hobgoblin ,
I Think , I agree with you on the fact it runned its course and there is nothing left to say or proove. He lied and whas prooven wrong.
I am just going to give him one more reply in this thread.
2005-08-17 10:30 pm
Moulinneuf
I whas replying to “Linux Is Poo” , he is the one not providing any details or specific. Thanks for providing one of many example.
2005-08-18 12:04 am
Anonymous
I said Service Pack 2 was free — not Windows XP w/ SP2.
Good work at twisting my words around/deliberately misunderstanding me. Everyone here is aware that SP2 can be obtained free of charge, both over the Internet, and on CD.
Can someone please mod this idiot into oblivion?
2005-08-18 6:15 am
Anonymous
I should clarify: I was talking about what a new Linux user would do in this case. I would imagine that most of these users would re-install there distro anyway. They would probably have to re-install windows as whell, or learn the magical registry incantations to make everything work again.
In Linux, they would have to learn the magical command line incantations to make there system work again without re-installing.
I’m not afraid of the command line, in fact, many years ago, I learned dos like the back of my own hand (the computer I had at the time was a 286 with dos 6.22 on it. I still use the windows xp command line for certain applications, but most windows users wouldn’t know how to get to that either; I guess.
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hobgoblin
this is because they often are condition to do so, either by past windows experience. atleast in dos you could fit a nice set of repair tools onto a floopy and 99% of the config files where human “readable”.
compared to dos the windows rescue console is, in my view atleast, limited at best.
i have a feel that as experience grows and people learn the power of the terminal/console, they will allso learn to like the rescue mode of most linux cds.
then they will understand that most errors can be fixed without requireing a full reinstall.
still, given that in linux you can mount the /home area on a seperate partition to the rest (you can do the same in 2k and later but its not exactly intuitive, nor is it done automaticaly by the installer) a full reinstall will most likely not risk your data.
i realy do wonder why most windows systems still come with only one drive partition. would it not be better to say have a 10/90 split so that the user files are safe from any system mess one would make?
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ma_d
Well that’s always true. No OS can be easy to repair, but you can make it easier for technical people to repair it.
You still have one which uses a good design: Plain text configuration files.
And another which uses a bad design: Binary heirarchial confusion files. *The heirarchial is good, except that some things like to put in hundreds of entries and bloat it right up.
And it ends up showing in the freedom you get to use about any tool to fix a bad *nix config where with Windows you’re limited to a few program Microsoft has written to use the registry. Plus I believe a couple commercial programs for general registry cleanup?
2005-08-18 7:59 am
Roscoe
Most of the complaints here have nothing to do specifically with GNU/Linux and could be applied to any non-windows operating system. (app support, driver support, msn webcam {why does this insignificant issue always get mentioned?} etc..).
As for the “Linux needs IT. JUST. WORKS.” comment, window s doesn’t just work either, or at least it doesn’t just work for long.
Take a plain install of windows. Use that for a while and any inexperienced user will no doubt be infected with at least one worm, a unknown amount of spyware, etc…at which point just works becomes just crashed.
So before we can say windows just works we have to install a firewall, patch it to sp2, install a antivirus program, install another browser and install a antispyware program.
Wait..this all sounds like alot of work and not at all what one thinks of when someone says just works.
People need to appreciate windows takes (or took in most peoples cases) a long time to learn how to use too. People trying new operating systems should keep that in mind.
[/end of rant]
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2005-08-18 9:32 am
2005-08-19 2:51 am
Anonymous
you’re not a Linux zealot if you think its ready for the desktop today. You’re a Linux zealot if you are one of those unfortunate radicles who flame other people if they choos an opperating system that goes against you’re particular political view of software licencing. You’re a windows zealot if you claim that windows is so much easier to use than Linux while ignoring the fact that it does take a long time to learn how to configure windows properly as whell. The windows registry is as much of a criptic mess as the Linux config files in my opinion.
What I have been trying to say in these last few posts is that while these Linux package manajors are nice, if your system becomes unuseable for some reason, than you’d better know the Linux or windows command line or at least some basic commands in order to at the very least access your partitions. If a windows system goes down, than the inexperienced user will probably need to re-install the system, rather than using the limited tools included with later versions of windows (they probably don’t even know about these anyway). In Linux they do have the command line, and much better tools for getting their system up and running again. But, if you’re someone new to that OS, you’ll probably do the same thing anyway. I grant that windows and Linux aren’t that much different to the new user in terms of this problem.
The windows recovery tools do suck, and I really wish that Microsoft would really get their act together on that point. It is true that in earlier versions of windows it was much easier to get somewhare with the system. All you had to do was to insert a dos bootdisk, and you at least had a chance of repairing the system without losing data. If you knew a few basic commands, than you could get started. I think that was something we unfortunatly lost in win2k/xp.
The ability to edit text configurations has, for the most part, been lost in newer versions of windows because most configuration files in windows are no longer human-readable. I should add hear that I have studied the format of both Linux and early windows text config files, and I think that, for the most part, the windows syntax is much easier to understand than the Linux counterpart.
I think this loss is also unfortunate, because probably many of us who remember the days when this was possible really miss that ability to at least get on the road to reparing your system by changeing one or two strings in a text file, orr booting into dos and trouble-shooting everything possible to trouble-shoot from the command line.
I personally have had to repair a windows 98 system before, and I can attest to the fact that the windows command line could be just as hard for nontechnical users to use, but that some of the commands, though not as functional as those in Linux, are somewhat easier for me to grow accustomed to.
As for documentation, fair enough ma_d. I have sceen that Ubuntu’s wiki is fulll of very friendly documentation and instructions for many aspects of the distribution. It’s just that organizations like the ldp really haven’t gotten it together in my opinion. I really think that some of their how-toos really are in despritt need of updating.
In conclusion, Whatever OS you decide to use will probably require that you have a helping hand to guide you along in this murcky world of computers. I would say that it is somewhat easier to find this in windows, but if you find this in Linux than you’ve been truly blessed.
ps: I think that the idea of seporated windows partitions for user data and system files is a good idea. At least then if the user needs to re-install windows, They won’t lose their data as easily.
2005-08-19 4:16 am
Anonymous
it’s not like some of us haven’t been using it for 8 years… big deal. not just using, hacking. ignore this drivel and check out debian-women (i’m not a member or a dd but they’re good people).
what’s with the itunes complaint crap? it’s not like there aren’t a plethora of decent audio players, like muine (heh, a bit of self-promotion there ^_^).
using linux is as easy or easier than windows. software management, especially with synaptic, is far easier than tracking down and blindly running executables from various websites. software is often more streamlined and easier to use. if you don’t like something, go get your hands dirty! yeah, there are gaps there but we’re closing them one by one. the main problems exist just have to do with interaction with proprietary systems where we don’t have much control (e.g. usb wifi and ntfs). in the next five years, i believe free-software systems will be as easy to use, or easier, than windows or os x and people will realize it.
8 years has changed a lot in the world of free software, development and innovation is happening at a blinding pace. 8 years ago, it was almost a joke to use linux-based systems on the desktop but now it’s not that much of a big deal.
listen to intelligent women. the fact that this is being seen as somehow representative is appalling. there are women here, they’re just frustrated by some of the sexism around.
— tamara roberson, [email protected]
just another 20 year old gnome girl
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2005-08-20 11:37 am
MissLia*the fact that this is being seen as somehow representative is appalling.*
And here I was thinking that perhaps a woman would appreciate that another woman would write a review of herself trying to learn more.
Nevermind that there are close-minded people our there, smart technical women like yourself should not be appalled. Or should you?
2005-08-19 6:22 am
Anonymous
Some things aren’t going to change because it seems like most don’t want to – but I won’t repeat the details here again.
> ‘Sure’ I said and he started installing it for me.
Enough said. If you get the most serious problems solved by others, then of course Linux is easy. And installing *is* the most serious problem (partitioning, drivers, stange post-install errors, …)
– Morin
Seems to me that’s exactly how most of the Windows/Mac Eloi manage to survive their adventures in computing. Or do you live in some parallel world where Joe User’s Grandma fixes her own issues.
Not really. I bet mplayer was actually the most challenging problem for her.
Of course, having your resident geek install it for you is the most realistic way to compare Windows and Linux. Do you honestly think your average Windows user could make it through a Windows install? They’d give up the minute they found their mouse didn’t work in the text-mode portion!
“If she can use Fedora linux, anyone can.”
Sure, until “anyone” buys a new $500 digital camera and can’t use it, etc, etc. Linux is still not for mom and dad, unless mom and dad are stuck in 1994 and still JUST use the web and email.
i have a 1000 dollar dslr camera, and it works with linux. flawlessly in fact. ufraw for gimp works great.
Of course anyone CAN use Fedora, the Linux community has accomplished their ease-of-use goal. But they have a serious problem with people WANTING to use it.
Now, they just need to focus on robustness, and making their distributions not feel like a less-featured, clunky Windows, which most people get “free” with their new PCs anyway.
It would also help to have real killer apps. The Gimp? Yes, but it runs well on Windows, too. Virtually everything for Linux can run on Windows, too. That’s a big problem for Linux.
No, if users use the same programs on both OS’es, then migration will be far easier.
Only the importing of old files and settings from windows to linux is lacking.
Only the importing of old files and settings from windows to linux is lacking.
Since when is it lacking? You can import bookmarks from IE to Firefox. You can open your Word, Powerpoint, and Excel files in OpenOffice. You can log into your AIM, MSN, and Yahoo instant messengers. You can connect to an MS Exchange mail server with Evolution. Novell even had a demonstration about a year or so ago that first backed up your files and settings onto a main server and then installed Suse and during installation it retrieved all of you settings and documents and imported them. It is a fantastic feature for businesses who want to switch.
“The Gimp? Yes, but it runs well on Windows, too. Virtually everything for Linux can run on Windows, too. That’s a big problem for Linux.”
You couldn’t be more wrong. Not only is this not a problem, it’s a boon to IT pros like me who are trying to get people to jump off of Windows and onto Linux. We can get them started on apps like Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org and GAIM so that when they finally see their Linux desktop, they have that much less to learn.
Uhm no, I’m right. People don’t give a fuck what OS they use as long as it works for them. And for most people, the Windows that comes installed on their new PC works for them and all their friends use it.
They have no reason to switch to Linux. Hell, I’d rather use Windows.
And you reply to my post saying I couldn’t be more wrong, yet you reply with something that doesn’t back that up, nor does it contradict what I said. Wtf?
“like’s” – there seems to be a distinct lack of submisson checking on OSNews recently. How about trying a bit harder to be professional editors, guys?
get over it…
OSNews doesn’t edit the submissions we get. We either write them from scratch or post them as is.
LOL how about typing “submission” instead of submisson next time?
shutup.
she should post some pics of her self… this review doesnt belong here anymore then the pics would so why not??
she should post some pics of her self… this review doesnt belong here anymore then the pics would so why not??
[shrugs] I thought it was entirely on topic for OSNews.
Admit it. You just want to look her over.
Anyone get the feeling the article was completely fabricated? It just seemed like it was written really strangely.. as if.. a linux guy wrote it, pretending to be female? is it just me?
-kn
no, I also got that feeling early on…
I agree, I mean no harm if this is the real deal but I just can’t believe that was written by a computer “noob”. All the article does is sum up things that have been said in every usability article ever written.
why fake ?
fdisk -l = lists the file systems (it basically shows you the partitions/what file systems they are)
just something every noob would say
:s
And the codes I had in Terminal was codes that I saw other using and was curious about myself.
I asked and they replied and I saved it.
As she says in the review, she copied the commands from the forums. Most likely she copied the description as well.
It’s no fake =)
I have been using it for a few months now and I’m sad to say that I haven’t read any other reviews from here, so I don’t know what has been said or not.
I was simply giving my view and look at all the comments :p
I think you should post a picture of yourself. 😀 You are a female preaching to the choir — Linux geeks don’t get many of those.
I think you should post a picture of yourself. 😀 You are a female preaching to the choir — Linux geeks don’t get many of those.
You really are an asshole.
As for the issue with playing movies/audio in linux there is a good framework being developed specifically to allow users to easily add proprietary codecs. Gstreamer.
Its plugin architecure enables users to take a codec module produced by a company and drop it in a codec catalog (easily done from totem). Not even the almighty windows can rival that in ease of use.
As a matter of fact, it can … Try DirectShow. Nice try, though.
Ohhh, running out of argument? A Linux distro is very customizatible. You can use any DE in Linux, heck you can ever made a Linux DE like OS X without paying an expensive application. So Linux is Poo, if it is the only shot you can do, then you proved yourself to be stupid in face of many poster.
So why do all Linux desktops still look like cluttered ass? Sorry, but GNOME/KDE don’t cut it for usability, performance, and cleanliness. Using a limited window manager is out of the question, especially considering that it’s 2005.
Windows, and especially OS X, have Linux beat here.
So why do all Linux desktops still look like cluttered ass? Sorry, but GNOME/KDE don’t cut it for usability, performance, and cleanliness. Using a limited window manager is out of the question, especially considering that it’s 2005.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think that Gnome has Windows XP beat on many usability accounts. Previews on various file formats and sane menu items for example. Even Paul Thurrott (The winsupersite guy) is impressed by Gnome.
http://www.connectedhomemag.com/Networking/Articles/Index.cfm?Artic…
I don’t think directshow is what you think it is. I believe directshow is far more broad than gstreamer. Gstreamer is all about encoding and decoding streams; directshow seems to be a general multimedia platform in which decoding streams is one task.
I would have to agree, I the article seemed a bit fake or staged to me also. For instance this quote “Well, thank gosh for http://www.linux-noob.com and the #linux-noob IRC channel on EFNET
“
I catch my GF sayiyng stuff like that ALL the time (no not really). I did some research and she is really a chick (I think) but she had a paid blogging account and hangs out in IRC rooms (on EFNET).
This does not make here an engineer but also not a total noob.
Yep I agree… or someone “helped” her “write” it.
Nice article,ahum nice girl too:-)
I stopped using Fedora after RedHat started offering RHEL 4 as a free download.
poor you, now you miss the hottest, newest stuff out there. RHEL may be stable, but us techies love the latest and the greatest 🙂
I agree entirely this is why Linux isn’t ready for ME
I don’t like Linux and honestly don’t care if she can run it or not, where are the pics?
At the bottom …. well I wanna call you a name but yea.
Actually I’d like to see more of these kinds of reviews, as I am certain that it is nearly impossible for most people who have used Linux to climb into the mind of a person who isn’t a computer enthusiast. At least, I have that problem.
We could learn a lot about usability this way, at bare minimum.
Of course, I’d like to see a new user install it from the outset.
Maybe an interesting idea for an article would be for someone who knows Linux to sit next to someone who doesn’t. Have the new user install Linux, and then the article could be in two parts – one written by the n00b, and one written by the veteran watching.
I think there’s some insight to be gained by that.
There’s a lot of talk about whether Linux is ready for the desktop but not a lot of real-world examples I’ve seen explored in detail. It’s certainly ready for people who care about their OS (I’ve been using it for years). Is it ready for your average Windows user? Most people say no, but I’d like to see real-life examples as to why that is the case rather than theories about what’s difficult and what’s not.
My husband is very good at computers and he helped me on the way. But yes, he did install it for me, I guess he knew I wouldnt have a clue how to anyway =)
Thank you!
Okay, for one, someone else installed it for her. That completely negates the blurb at the top. Secondly …
She says this:
“After asking around I was told that I needed something called Mplayer, since the ‘normal’ Win Player or Media Player didn’t cut it in this new world. Yet another link, yet another hurdle and hours spent. This time it was a bit harder because even though I managed to install it, it still didn’t work.”
Sorry, but most people don’t have the motivation/patience to spend *hours* trying to get video to play. Given that fact, she later says:
“Anyway, what’s great about using it in Linux is that it’s a fast process. Fast and painless. All you need to do is to plug the camera into your USB port and turn it on.”
Excuse me? Fast and painless? She just spent hours trying to install a program.
I call bullshit on this review.
Okay, for one, someone else installed it for her.
Someone else installed Windows for her…it’s called Dell, Gateway, HP(Compaq), eMachines… Newbie reviews shouldn’t be judged on said user installing the OS, for most newbies don’t install Windows on their own.
Sorry, but most people don’t have the motivation/patience to spend *hours* trying to get video to play
Once again, Media Player, Real Player, and any video player would be pre-installed by Dell and etc. Not a equal comparison. If Linux were pre-installed the same way (as I do it) then the media player is installed and working.
This review was a good starting point to see usability issues with Linux.
Take it for it’s merits, instead of ripping it to shreds with questionable logic and “facts”.
I never said ease of installation was something to judge the OS by — but OSNews and the blurb did, therefore I discredited the claim.
As for the media player, it wasn’t so much the fact that a media player was missing (God knows modern distributions install at least 4), it’s that a specific media player and codec was missing. In Windows, I download the DivX installer, double-click, click Next, and I have DivX in all of my media programs. The same applies to XviD.
This person spent hours getting streaming video to work. Are those the merits you speak of?
The blurb at the top of the article doesn’t specify install, it specifies use.
By bringing up the OS installation, you stated a judgement as to it being a criteria for the review. You created the means for the comparison, not I.
As for the media player issue, once again, had Linux been pre-installed (by me) the codec would have been there, and this wouldn’t have been an issue. The vast majority of websites out there use WMP, QuickTime, or Real as their streaming source, and MPlayer will work with all 3 of those.
Not to mention, Windows never comes with all the codecs either
.
Sorry, but most people don’t have the motivation/patience to spend *hours* trying to get video to play
*Remembers when spending days at a time tweaking autoexec.bat and config.sys to get certain programs working was not terribly uncommon*
Couldn’t possibly be that the median computer userbase has turned into a bunch of spoiled, whiny bitches who can barely think for themselves could it? No, never.
” for one, someone else installed it for her.”
Like 95% of the 65% of Microsoft windows desktop product users who bought it installed as default from the stores.
“but most people don’t have the motivation/patience to spend *hours* trying to get video to play.”
Most people dont use Fedora for this reason , this problem this day is not the norm anymore. Not everyone can installl an OS and have it setup for normal use.
“Fast and painless? She just spent hours trying to install a program. ”
She is talking about her camera interroperability with GNU/Linux and Fedora. For her it seems faster and work with less pain then with some Windows , you still have that reading problem I see.
“I call bullshit on this review.”
Yes , so ?
She said Linux was “fast and painless”, not the process of getting photos off her camera, when clearly Linux itself was not fast and painless for reasons which I also stated.
YOU should learn to read.
“She said Linux was “fast and painless” ”
No , she said :
“Anyway, what’s great about ***using it in*** Linux is that ***it’s a fast process***. Fast and painless. ”
“not the process of getting photos off her camera”
No , because she then said :
“Up bounces a window that asks you if you want to download your images onto the hard drive and off you go.”
” when clearly Linux itself was not fast and painless for reasons which I also stated. ”
She as some trouble with a couple of application , due to her lack of training and of reading installation brochure and lack of support in that area and the entire OS according only to you become defacto not fast and not painless. Whats clear is that your AGAIN concentrating on what you whant to see and specifically whant to hear , hey , if she only as trouble with media Player I know GNU/Linux as won , since it detected all her hardware and all her peripherics without trouble and installed a base without problem.
“YOU should learn to read.”
I am not the one who as a problem understanding what she wrote after reading it and drawing false conclusion based on this false reading and a clear hatred for the entire OS *Linux is Poo*.
Personnaly as an expert , I cant figure why she aint using APT , YUM or up2date , or told about it , probably no one told her it exist.
I should clear a few things up.
What I ment was that the CAMERA program in Linux was easy to use, not Linux itself.
“Anyway, what’s great about ***using it in*** Linux is that ***it’s a fast process***. Fast and painless. ”
Under the subject CAMERA.
*IT*
The camera…
You do need to read it again
“but most people don’t have the motivation/patience to spend *hours* trying to get video to play.”
Most people dont use Fedora for this reason , this problem this day is not the norm anymore. Not everyone can installl an OS and have it setup for normal use.
What some people fail to understand is Fedora only uses open source applications i.e Totem will only play format like wav or ogg. Getting a MPlayer to display video in proprietary format is a trivial matter by using the right repository. Giving the right information is the key.
Okay so she uses Fedora 3 , so what !!?!?
I agree with some the above comments that the article did
read strangley. She seems to have an amazing amount of patience…. that aside .
I find the stuff about Mplayer a bit dubious, i have been using Linux since 96 and Mplayer is a PAIN to install ,the generic instructions are basically the same from distro to distro but the package names ,extra repositories … codec ,packages compiling makes
it more than just a trivial task. I don’t see how she stuck with Fedora 3 after all of this , the only thing
she said she liked was how the picture imports from here camera. …. nothing else .
Doesnt she do any wordprocessing , she didnt even mention OO….. hmmmmmmm reeeal dubiiioous… smells fishy … .
Way to take the quote out of context. You might as well write an article for some right wing media outlet about Cindy Sheehan. Your ethics are just as bad, or maybe it’s just your total lack of reading comprehension.
[removed post from 142.161.79.184 (wnpgmb09dc1-79-184.dynamic.mts.net)]
The NTFS part is hilariuos!!! This is written by a non technical girl……….. and Elvis is alive.
Well I have been using it for a few months now, but I thought it was dead tricky to be honest.
Why hilarious?
I just recently made a girl a Gentoo Linux system.
Sure I do all the maintenance. But she loves it. Begged every day just about to start the install after I let her use mine when her internet went out.
The day I got it all up she was playing in her room all day.
She’s got all she needs with OpenOffice.org, KDE and Mozilla
She’s a Vet Tech and also isn’t very tech savvy.
Just might switch her to Fedora tho. while I prefer Gentoo, I don’t know her computer as well as mine to properly set everything up. Also don’t have time to tweak it as much.
“here’s the PC, lady. It’s running Linux because I don’t need no bullshit – deal with it”
< 10 min. later you get laid>
like “someone invite you to webcam chat but your msn client is too old, click here to upgrade”
then she would have to fing gaim-vv and she would have figured out how to install it, then she would have failed, of course, and looked for another stuff called mercury and she would have installed it easier than anything else but no matter what she tried, nothing would have worked… then she would have gone back to her now ex friends and told him that webcaming doesn’t work on linux, once he laughed at her, she reboot, back to windows and everything just work fine……..
by the way, what a poor distro if her windows partition don’t appear ?
even mandrake make them visible…..
we’re seing the 2 ou 3 last years of “linux on desktop
is ready in 2 weeks”
I hope there won’t be another such lame review…….
it’s me or osnews is becoming more and more shitty these days ?
Wow, back in 1994, all I used was Gopher and email.
I believe in 1994 I was begging people to edit a bunch of old DOS startup files to enable more memory so I could play my FPS games. I forget the name of the game now though; it was a killer game though.
If a girl that isn’t an expert on basic computer knowledge can use it, anyone can! That’s not even slightly condescending!
random person uses linux for a few days and fanboys get wood thinking linux is going to take over the world.
news flash: computers are tools not a religion
finally some one said somthing smart
gradually over a year, I have replaced all our windows installations on our small office lan with ubuntu.
Sure people like my mother still ask me “how to save the file” in the word processor (5 years down the line), but they can use an email client and whatever else end-users need to get by.., I don’t even think they know that they are not using windows anymore! What is heartening is when users actually become acustomed to their new open source applications. I tried to convert one of the users from Evolution to Thunderbird the other day and she nearly bit my head off..
But I actually think is an honest review by a girl who used to be a noob. So she didn’t install it, so what? If she did start using it and got help in the forums and on IRC, then she has moved up a step from being a noob. She got in there and got help and figured out how things work. If she had said she wrote this article after a day or two past the install, then I would be skeptical of the article’s authenticity.
Thank you! =)
I have been using it for a few monnths now so I am familiar with it.
I am tired of these type of articles. The gist was that even this “woman”, who is nontechnical, can install Linux, therefore anyone can. This article, however, fails to see reason to why someone might not want too. The big reason among them is multimedia and games.
I do actually have to like Linux, but fail to see it as an end all solution. I have a number of installs, even on my current network, but I still use Windows on my home box for a number of reasons. Here are a couple of them. If you have any suggestions on how to solve them be my guest…
#1 I use iTunes, I actually like it. I use iTunes with Audible Audio to get stories and articles that I listen to on my daily commute. Is there currently a Gnome and KDE application that allows me to interface with iTunes Music Store and upload content onto my iPod?
#2 I do a lot of photo and video editing. Are there currently any applications that have the power of Photoshop or Premiere?
#3 I happen to like online PC Gaming, I know that I could get an Xbox/PS2, but that is not the same as having a highend video card on a 21″ LCD display. I currently play HalfLife II, Splinter Cell series, NBA Basketball, NHL Hockey, and MVP baseball. Do any of these games currently work under linux besides Halflife?
#4 Further, is the driver quality of hardware products. Has anyone ever seriously used ATI drivers for gaming or media? When will Visioneer scanners be supported (pick other hardware)?
#5 Visual Studio 2005. When is their going to be a visual IDE that has the quality and the “libraries” available on Linux to make porting easy? Most do not want to write code in Vi or Emacs.
#2 I do a lot of photo and video editing. Are there currently any applications that have the power of Photoshop or Premiere?
1 of the 2. Gimp is quite nice and is used even in professional workshops. I personally found it easier than photoshop.
#3 I happen to like online PC Gaming, I know that I could get an Xbox/PS2, but that is not the same as having a highend video card on a 21″ LCD display. I currently play HalfLife II, Splinter Cell series, NBA Basketball, NHL Hockey, and MVP baseball. Do any of these games currently work under linux besides Halflife?
Have you ever looked into wine/winex?
#5 Visual Studio 2005. When is their going to be a visual IDE that has the quality and the “libraries” available on Linux to make porting easy? Most do not want to write code in Vi or Emacs.
KDevelop is what I use everyday for C++ and Java.
There’s some decent video software on linux, but it’s not well supported. To be honest, if you do actual video editing, I’d stick with Windows or Mac.
If you rip videos, come on over. And please, don’t call ripping editing
.
1 of the 2. Gimp is quite nice and is used even in professional workshops. I personally found it easier than photoshop.
As someone who knows more about getting things printer ready than the average schmeddly, unless something has changed in the last 6 months, GIMP is incredibly *crippled* next to P-shop.
Sure, if you’re doing something where the art is going to be digital to digital to digital, GIMP is fine. It’s fine if you want to retouch and edit photos. It’s also okay if you don’t care about/need color accuracy on a print.
But if you’re designing something to be printed, the fact that GIMP colors RGB and does not support proper CMYK conversion and the Pantone color system is a deal breaker.
I cannot name a single top-flight professional artist I know who uses GIMP on color work they plan to make production ready.
In fact, the only professional illustrator I know who uses it creates his files with GIMP and then sneakernets the files to a friend with PShop for CMYK conversion when he’s ready to send a book to press.
#5 Visual Studio 2005. When is their going to be a visual IDE that has the quality and the “libraries” available on Linux to make porting easy? Most do not want to write code in Vi or Emacs.
KDevelop is what I use everyday for C++ and Java.
Damn how can you people compare KDevelop with Visual Studio 2005? It’s like comparing your little cat with a tiger. Visual Studio 2005 is the most powerful IDE of all time. It started to be better than everything else I tried before at Beta1… Can’t wait to get the final one eh.
#1 I use iTunes, I actually like it. I use iTunes with Audible Audio to get stories and articles that I listen to on my daily commute. Is there currently a Gnome and KDE application that allows me to interface with iTunes Music Store and upload content onto my iPod?
GTKPod
kioslave-ipod
#2 I do a lot of photo and video editing. Are there currently any applications that have the power of Photoshop or Premiere?
The GIMP (Graphic Image Manipulation Program)
#3 I happen to like online PC Gaming, I know that I could get an Xbox/PS2, but that is not the same as having a highend video card on a 21″ LCD display. I currently play HalfLife II, Splinter Cell series, NBA Basketball, NHL Hockey, and MVP baseball. Do any of these games currently work under linux besides Halflife?
Cedega (Transgaming) runs many Windows games, possibly some of these. Level the finger at the game manufacturers instead of the OS for this one. They have to make the game for the platform, not the platform having to accomodate for the game.
#4 Further, is the driver quality of hardware products. Has anyone ever seriously used ATI drivers for gaming or media? When will Visioneer scanners be supported (pick other hardware)?
Once again, point the finger at the hardware mfg’s…they are the ones that need to produce drivers. The community has done outstanding work with a lot of the devices currently out there, but it’s extremely hard to do development for drivers when you don’t have the specs to do it with. ATI won’t supply those, so development by third parties is a bit more complicated.
#5 Visual Studio 2005. When is their going to be a visual IDE that has the quality and the “libraries” available on Linux to make porting easy? Most do not want to write code in Vi or Emacs.
Eclipse
KDevelop
Mono
Just to name a few
The hardest point in a revolution is to convince the tried and true that their system isn’t working. You sound like a tried and true Windows user; I can understand that, but Linux isn’t Windows. The method, the means, the opportunity are all different.
1. GTKPod does not integrate with the iTunes Music Store. Please read the parent’s questions in full before answering.
2. The GIMP is not a replacement for Photoshop, nor does it do video editing. Again, read the questions in full.
3. Game makers would release games for Linux if only every distro wasn’t incompatible with every other distro, and if the kernel devs would actually maintain a stable driver/kernel API for at least a year.
4. Once again, see above. New kernel == new driver. Why is it that I can install a FreeBSD 4.1 driver in FreeBSD 4.12? The same applies to Windows. Many Windows 2000 drivers work in Windows XP. 95 –> 98 — ME also.
5. I don’t do much development, but I know that MSVS has many cool and advanced features that Linux dev environments have yet to match. There’s something I heard about stopping a running program, modifying code, then resuming execution.
1. Okay..ITunes will run under Wine or Crossover.
However, once again, point the finger at Apple. They developed Itunes…the onus of responsibilty is on them to provide for the Linux platform.
2. I’m not sure what you think the GIMP is, but the GIMP will do the purpose of what Photoshop will do. And there is a video GIMP for video files which will do what Premiere will do as well. There are other video programs that will do editing. There are choices.
3. Open Office seems to be able to release software for multiple platforms. I don’t see why a game manufacturer can’t do the same thing.
4. The same “chase” that you mentioned when a new kernel comes out is the same one driver manufacturers did (and still do) with Windows. My company does software development, and there is a constant battle with MS products over their changes to their API and their device drivers.
5. Our software development is actually being done in KDevelop and Eclipse. We have one developer using Visual Studio; the rest develop their C code in other IDE’s and it’s working out just great.
Installation: Fair enough. Reading the comments polluted my judgement and I’d assumed the blurb talked about installation.
Use, on the other hand … it’s all fine and good if there’s someone well-versed in Linux helping you out, but as was demonstrated, someone semi-capable embarking on application/codec installation spends hours in frustration. It should not be that way, but it is. That’s my point. Installing an application should require no more than a few clicks. OS X is even easier than Windows, which I’d already thought was damned easy.
1. Again, distro compatability/API stability. If releasing iTunes for Linux was as easy as for Windows/OS X, I’m sure Apple would do it. The problems arise because everyone has a different system and the binary software doesn’t work.
2. The GIMP will do basic Photoshop work, but no more: No RAW support, no 16-bits per channel, no adjustment layers, poor ICC profile support (the platform is to blame here), no CMYK, and so on. Some of these may have improved by now, as I haven’t touched that silly program in at least two years.
3. Because games are considerably more complex than office suites? Think input libraries, network libraries, sound libraries, graphics libraries … Oh, and last I saw, most people compile Open Office from source.
4. I don’t know about that. If I install a graphics/sound/wifi/etc. driver in Windows, it tends to work indefinitely, no matter what updates I apply.
5. Great — then again different people have different needs. The parent probably requires specific features of MSVS.
2. The GIMP will do basic Photoshop work, but no more: No RAW support, no 16-bits per channel, no adjustment layers, poor ICC profile support (the platform is to blame here), no CMYK, and so on. Some of these may have improved by now, as I haven’t touched that silly program in at least two years.
A modified GIMP version called Cinepaint can do the trick. http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/
3. Because games are considerably more complex than office suites? Think input libraries, network libraries, sound libraries, graphics libraries … Oh, and last I saw, most people compile Open Office from source.
I guess it is easy to port a PS2 game to a Gameboy Advance, isn’t it?
4. I don’t know about that. If I install a graphics/sound/wifi/etc. driver in Windows, it tends to work indefinitely, no matter what updates I apply.
Manufacturers specifically support Windows. However, a smart person will only look for application that can run on a Linux distro.
1. the problem most of the time is that one distro choose to use a diffrent compiler then the rest of them. last time this happend was when RH in their wisdom used a beta version of GCC…
other then that its more often that one do not have the right library available. a problem solvable by using static libs. and given that apple use mostly inhouse libs im guessing they could make a static version of itunes as easy as opera software makes a static version of their browser
sure its a bit against the grain when it comes to linux software but it works 
2. a lot have happend with gimp lately. you may want to visit http://www.gimp.org and have a look. one thing tho, CMYK support will not happen until the patent runs out. yes its a bitch and thats why i hope european software patents never happen.
3. and still id software manages to put out fully workijng versions of their engines and games on linux soon after the windows release. why? opengl. problem is that most games are buildt around directx, and that is a windows only solution. hell, there is a LGPL game framework out there called SDL that enables the game to be recompiled for any number of os’s.
4. and when hardware first works under linux it works for ever. atleast as long as the driver is open source. if its closed source then it only works as long as it either use a recompilable interface layer or until the kernel gets a change in the driver api.
still, many of the problems in windows comes from them trying to support stuff as far back as the dos days. and from what i understand linus will never agree to compromise the kernels development by trying to maintain a stable driver api.
5. and if they do so then stay with windows. if one writes standrd c or c++ then any ascii editor and gcc should do the trick
Linus is stupid, then. He will compromise nothing by maintaining a stable driver API. What a fscking fool to say that.
A stable driver API will result in many manufacturers gaining serious interest in releasing drivers for Linux. People blame the manufacturers for not releasing drivers, when really it’s the kernel dev team that should be blamed. If they standardized the driver API, we’d be seeing amazing drivers and Linux adoption by now.
Instead, manufacturers figure “Why the hell should we invest the time and money in developing this driver if they’re only going to break it in a month?”.
Games are more complicated than modern office suites in a parallel universe, maybe. And of course that’s accounting for varying meanings of ‘complicated.’ Games are largely unaffected by changes in kernel APIs on either platform, since they’re developed using libraries far removed from such things. The notable exception might be the retardation of OSS/ALSA migration for programs that specifically made use of OSS.
The majority of what the average person uses Photoshop (where most is probably made up of people that just download it in violation of copyright law from P2P networks) isn’t anymore sophisticated than a Photoshop Phriday entry. The number of people that bitch about the technical differences between GIMP and Photoshop far outnumbers the number of people that actually know how the use the program to any meaningful degree, and seeing this pop up for every discussion simply makes my brain bleed.
I see no reason to think that Apple would port iTunes to Linux for any reason, regardless of ABI concerns. What desktop application does Apple ever port to Linux? For the matter, what desktop applications does Apple port to Windows other than QuickTime and iTunes, despite its market share?
Installation: Fair enough. Reading the comments polluted my judgement and I’d assumed the blurb talked about installation.
Use, on the other hand … it’s all fine and good if there’s someone well-versed in Linux helping you out, but as was demonstrated, someone semi-capable embarking on application/codec installation spends hours in frustration. It should not be that way, but it is. That’s my point. Installing an application should require no more than a few clicks. OS X is even easier than Windows, which I’d already thought was damned easy.
Fedora Core (or actually Anaconda) is as easy as Windows XP.
Configuring Fedora is a different task altogether.
Oh, in the last couple of months I spend countless hours trying to help my family and friends recover from butch installation/viruses/worms/bad AV updates/SP updates/etc. Needless to say I didn’t even spend 1/10 helping my Linux-using friends.
Considering the fact that I just had to reinstall my Windows XP machine, just because Norton botched my registry (again), and there was nothing I could do to save the OS, talking about Windows administration being easy sounds… well… absurd.
1. Again, distro compatability/API stability. If releasing iTunes for Linux was as easy as for Windows/OS X, I’m sure Apple would do it. The problems arise because everyone has a different system and the
binary software doesn’t work.
*So*?
Mozilla has been releasing generic binary versions for years now. (Check the mozilla.org ftp site)
The copy of Quake3 that I just played was compiled against RH7.3 and I’m using FC4/x86-64.
I’d suggest you do some reading about libraries before making such false comments.
Second, the Linux user-land API has been stable for ages now.
Even the switch to a different threading model changed little to user-land applications.
It took me 2 days to convert my 2.4 code to 2.6 kernels.
It took me a month to get the Windows version working when I switched to Windows XP. (2K3 wasn’t any better).
Every-time some monkey in MS gets bored we have to rewrite our code. Stable API. Yeah right.
2. The GIMP will do basic Photoshop work, but no more: No RAW support, no 16-bits per channel, no adjustment layers, poor ICC profile support (the platform is to blame here), no CMYK, and so on. Some of these may have improved by now, as I haven’t touched that silly program in at least two years.
I know a couple of people working in image manipulation who prefer GIMP over Photoshop, one of them is a Windows user. But as I don’t use it myself, I can’t really comment on this one.
3. Because games are considerably more complex than office suites? Think input libraries, network libraries, sound libraries, graphics libraries … Oh, and last I saw, most people compile Open Office from source.
Most games use the Microsoft proprietary Direct3D library.
Due to obvious reasons Linux does not not support Direct3D. (Wine project is working on it; I doubt that it’ll be ready any time soon)
Most OpenGL games (which are multi-platform by design), were already ported to Linux/MAC.
(E.g.: Quake1/2/3, ET, Unreal, UT1/2003/2004, RtCW, Doom1/2/3, AA, MOHA, etc)
However, game development houses get certain, how shell I call it, benefits for using D3D, hence, most games use D3D and cannot be ported to Linux. (One of my ex-workplaces got the same, err, benefits…)
4. I don’t know about that. If I install a graphics/sound/wifi/etc. driver in Windows, it tends to work indefinitely, no matter what updates I apply.
OK.
You got to be kidding right.
You have any idea how many devices/machine stopped working when my company switched to SP2?
5. Great — then again different people have different needs. The parent probably requires specific features of MSVS.
Here’s a nice story.
I’m still using VC6 for my projects but the .NET client guys decided to switch to VS2K5.
And what a blunder this turned out to be.
Project getting botched; new bugs in stable code due to environment changes; problems with VS integration, etc, etc, etc.
Funny, I don’t see that happening to my VI… (To be honest VS6/SP6 is pretty stable, so MS is not that bad
)
Here’s a nice story.
I’m still using VC6 for my projects but the .NET client guys decided to switch to VS2K5.
And what a blunder this turned out to be.
Here’s a better story: Read the DVD that says Visual Studio 2005 [i]BETA</i 2.
It is BETA. ok? Not ready. Wait till November 7th, 2005. Until then, stick to VS2003.
VS2003 is much more stable than VS6.
The fact that most ppl use DirectX is that it provides a much more complete framework than OpenGL.
I can’t imagine an Unreal engine made with SDL Library.
“Video GIMP”? If there is such a thing google doesn’t know about it…
…the closest thing I could find was CinePaint which was previously “Film Gimp”, but it’s more of a rotoscoping application and definately not a non-linear editing program like Premier.
Try again…
1) The Gimp is NOT photoshop nor it comes close. It is very good, but for serious profesional digital image, photoshop is the ONLY way to go. The gimp crashes from time to time.
2) Games: Please, Cedega can run “some” of these games. If DirectX is better than the current OpenGL version, what can you do; the only reason why DX is better is that the framework itself is much more complete. OpenGL is only graphics. With DX you have a full solution. (Sound, Network, 2D, 3D, etc.)
3) They would produce drivers, if they didn’t have incompatibilities with each Linux distribution, revision, version.
4) Mono is not an IDE. MonoDevelop is not even 1/4 of visual Studio 2003 and not even 1/8 of VS 2005. Eclipse and KDevelop cannot code in C# and are (IMO) far worse from VS in many aspects (I haven’t used Eclipse more than a few hours on a simple Java prj. tho, but I have used KDevelop). VS Rocks. Sorry.
Linux is ok for many things. But Windows has its market, its applications and its users. Some applications, not matter how good they are on linux, do not come close to their Redmond Counterparts.
And I use OS X now
Also that explains the iTunes problem. You have mentioned some stuff for KDE… that’s not iTunes, that’s a hack.
*sigh*
Replace all uses of Linux from here on with GNU/Linux
1.) Gimp is very good. In fact, most of what it’s missing that photoshop has is automated tasks like red-eye reduction. Frankly, Photoshop is for professionals; every amatuer photoshop work I see seems to display just how bad you can make your work look with it (except for some Deviant Art stuff). Given the choice, without any politics, I’d choose Gimp hands down.
2.) Games: Buy a console. I’m gonna say this one more time, for those who can’t seem to listen; gamers do not represent a majority of PC users. They represent a large minority. If gamers all stayed on Windows, and everyone else switched evenly between Mac and Linux; Windows would have the smallest perecentage…
3.) Read my lips: Linux is linux. Ok, that’s a lie; ignore it. Almost every single distribution has the dynamically loaded modules built in; and probably 75% of distributions install kernel sources by default in “/usr/src/linux-$ver.” with a symlink “/usr/src/linux” to it. Nvidia and ATI both make a driver; Nvidia’s works almost 100% universally without a hitch. ATI’s is a little more difficult because they’ve chosen an RPM package for it; so sometimes you have to download rpm2tgz to use it.
4.) Linux has no amazing IDE (if we forget eclipse). However, that’s not because there’s not a good development environment.
Any good Unix developer will tell you that an IDE is pointless on Unix. There’s just no reason to lose the power of a command line so that you can click away; except to reach people who don’t know what they’re doing and don’t want to learn.
Linux has great editors; lots of them.
Linux has great debuggers: gdb, valgrind. Anybody want to name some for non-c/c++ languages?
Linux has a great compiler suite: gcc.
Linux has great text manipulation utilities like sed and grep.
What else do you want? Does the developer need a pwetty wittle gui
.
“And I use OS X now
Also that explains the iTunes problem. You have mentioned some stuff for KDE… that’s not iTunes, that’s a hack.”
Maybe if Apple weren’t a bunch of mooching whores and would port something useful back people wouldn’t have to reverse engineer their stuff
.
1) GTKPod works fine. It even lets you get music back off your iPod and onto your hard drive. Does iTunes do that? My iPod goes from my PC running debian to my G5 running yellowdog and I can add remove songs on both.
2) Kino, gimp-video, the gimp. If you’re not a professional you’ll probably be satisfied and hey…it’s cheap.
3) Can’t argue there. I have a PS2, I do serious work on my PC and fuck around with my PS2. Windows does everything but does nothing exceptionall well. Linux is rock solid and secure. I have a lot of sensitive work material on my machine. I would NOT trust Windows with it and neither does my company.
4)NVidia drivers are top notch and release often. My solution is to run Nvidia hardware. I’m not looking for great gaming cards I need my computer for work but my GF4 runs great.
5) Are you a real developer or just someone who dicks around in Visual Studio? This is an honest question. Whatever you can do in Visual Studio you can do on linux. If you need an IDE that holds your hand there’s always Eclipse and monodevelop is coming along nicely. Glade for making XML defined UI’s(this doesn’t exist on windows yet, but apparantly it’s coming) is a godsend.
I’m tired of these types of post. It’s obvious you have not a clue what you’re talking about and it shows. I like Windows, I like Linux, I like solaris but I don’t pretend any of them is better than the other and if I’m gonna put one of them down I’m sure as shit gonna know what I’m talking about.
I use iTunes, I actually like it. I use iTunes with Audible Audio to get stories and articles that I listen to on my daily commute. Is there currently a Gnome and KDE application that allows me to interface with iTunes Music Store and upload content onto my iPod?
Well iTunes works with wine, well with crossover at least. I have a better solution though, get rid of the iPod. Seriously those things are terrible. They break so easily and have jack crap for features. I never understood why people like them.
#2 I do a lot of photo and video editing. Are there currently any applications that have the power of Photoshop or Premiere?
Not that I know of. Gimp is great but if you are a photoshop fanatic already then you’re going to hate it. I personally like it better though because I never was a big Photoshop user when I primarily used Windows. One cool thing is that CinePaint (which is based on the Gimp) is used a lot in the movie industry. It is only used to touch up film, but it does have some features that Photoshop does not.
#4 Further, is the driver quality of hardware products. Has anyone ever seriously used ATI drivers for gaming or media? When will Visioneer scanners be supported (pick other hardware)?
I’ve known some people that have used ATI for games on Linux but it’s not pretty. Nvidia is much better on Linux so you’ll have to switch if you want to play serious games. As far as Visioneer goes, some of them work with SANE and some of them (the model I have included) do not.
#5 Visual Studio 2005. When is their going to be a visual IDE that has the quality and the “libraries” available on Linux to make porting easy? Most do not want to write code in Vi or Emacs.
There are plenty of quality IDEs out there although I still prefer vi. Check out Eclipse, Anjuta, and KDevelop. Glade + Anjuta makes building a GNOME or just plain old GTK+ pretty easy. KDevelop + QT Designer is damn good too.
#1 I use iTunes, I actually like it. I use iTunes with Audible Audio to get stories and articles that I listen to on my daily commute. Is there currently a Gnome and KDE application that allows me to interface with iTunes Music Store and upload content onto my iPod?
MediaChest – a java application, but has better ipod functionality than iTunes in my view. Gtkpod, and I think amarok all support ipods. Don’t know about the music store – can’t you just use a browser for that?
#2 I do a lot of photo and video editing. Are there currently any applications that have the power of Photoshop or Premiere?
For video editing, there is MainACtor 5 – it’s a pay solution, but works very well. For non-pay, the only one that’s stable and works well is kino. For photo editing, there is the gimp. There is also krita – from their website:
“Krita is a painting and image editing application for KOffice. Krita is part of KOffice since 1.4. Krita contains both ease-of-use and fun features like guided painting (never before has it been so easy to airbrush a straight line!) and high-end features like support for 16 bit images, CMYK and even OpenEXR HDR images.”
so it has the “magic” cmyk support that everyone goes on about with photoshop. For more consumer/low end, there’s digikam for basic editing/redeye/printing/emailing images/slideshows etc. There’s also kimdaba for photo management.
#3 I happen to like online PC Gaming, I know that I could get an Xbox/PS2, but that is not the same as having a highend video card on a 21″ LCD display. I currently play HalfLife II, Splinter Cell series, NBA Basketball, NHL Hockey, and MVP baseball. Do any of these games currently work under linux besides Halflife?
No idea. Can’t comment, I don’t do gaming.
#4 Further, is the driver quality of hardware products. Has anyone ever seriously used ATI drivers for gaming or media? When will Visioneer scanners be supported (pick other hardware)?
I’ve used ATI before, and 3d acceleration worked out of the box – this was about 2 years ago. Don’t know what the situation is today. However, it is possible to pick out all sorts of hardware that has poor driver support on Windows. It’s not a reason to condemn a whole OS. Pick the hardware that’s supported by your OS – Mac does it.
#5 Visual Studio 2005. When is their going to be a visual IDE that has the quality and the “libraries” available on Linux to make porting easy? Most do not want to write code in Vi or Emacs.
Huh? Linux is a developer’s paradise. There are ide’s for all sorts of languages all over the place. This is an extraordinary and telling comment.
Next problem/motivation arrived as I was trying to watch a video clip in a newspaper website. I downloaded the file but it wouldn’t play. After asking around I was told that I needed something called Mplayer, since the ‘normal’ Win Player or Media Player didn’t cut it in this new world. Yet another link, yet another hurdle and hours spent. This time it was a bit harder because even though I managed to install it, it still didn’t work
HOURS SPENT TO GET A SIMPLE BIT OF VIDEO STREAMING.
HOURS
This is the sort of crap that’s preventing Linux from kicking the snot out of Windows. Simple things that the average schmeddly wants to do — surf an interactive bells and whistles web, write, and listen to music.
Linux doesn’t need a new browser, text editor, theme, or UI.
Linux needs IT. JUST. WORKS.
And that’s not going to happen in a vacuum. If you aren’t coding something, but are a Linux/OSS user, it would behoove you to send enough money to buy at least one extra-large supreme pizza to the project of your choice.
If you like it, buy the people who made it a pizza.
Surely their work deserves that.
It takes hours because fedora isn’t a distro for Newbies. It specifically avoids any proprietary formats; like mp3 for example.
It also takes hours because the people who are the best with making things easy aren’t gonna mess with that legal crapshoot. The people who do mess with it generally don’t care about “idiots” (commoners) who used to be feeding the legal crapshoot
.
I don’t know why people don’t understand that fedora is a testing distro, not a newbie’s best friend.
I’d take a good tester over money any day.
I went to my parents house this weekend and as usual they asked me to look at there PC and see what is wrong AND again it was ate up with spyware and viruses. I said enough! ..I took it home and installed FC4 and did all the updates and installed java, flash and mplayer and all the goodies. Created icons for everything they use.
I know this will be a success because what some smartass said…Because all they do is surf and read email.
They are now free of pop-ups spyware and viruses…
Yeah I know..You windows lozers will claim they get that now with all the latest anti spyware, firewall and pop-blockers,… My question to you monkeys is why does one need to have or know to do all that crap just to google and send an Email or two
And why is it OK to spend time to stay vigilant with the updates and install system protection tools any different that spending a little time getting actual software to work versus the time protecting a system from all the unwanted software that Windows seems to attract.
Cox, SBC, and any ISP worth anything do not provide Anti Spyware, Anti Virus software and Pop Up blockers because they are nice guys… They do to reduce the crap that is sucking bandwidth on there network ….
Why there is not a class action lawsuit against Microsoft from ISPs to re coup the cost of protect there network from that rat infested OS of Microsoft I will never understand.
sheesh … The arrogance of some people. The gal wrote a blog about Fedora … re-direct denial sone where else.
E-Nuff… I’m done… Go update your pop up blocker or spyware or whatever the hell you need to do satisfy false sense of security.
So, I just negated your move. Sorry
What does that mean ?
Cox does provide anti-spam software directly on the servers (if you turn it on… it blocks most of the spam I used to receive; I went from >300 a day to about 15 a day.), and they do have a free popup blocker available too (no antivirus though). As far as loading Windows down with firewall/antivirus/etc… well I just use FreeBSD. I do have Windows on my laptop, but I also have a hardware firewall on my home network, so usually I don’t see too much in the way of problems (I do have antivirus and a software firewall installed just in case though).
Yeah I know..You windows lozers will claim they get that now with all the latest anti spyware, firewall and pop-blockers,… My question to you monkeys is why does one need to have or know to do all that crap just to google and send an Email or two
You are the loser. Now IE comes with a really nice popup blocker turned on by default that works perfectly. The firewall is also bundled with Windows now. Anti-Spyware? They made one free and every months you get a “monthly” quiet one when you go to Windows Update that will make sure you werent stupid enough to get a spyware since the last update.
And why is it OK to spend time to stay vigilant with the updates and install system protection tools any different that spending a little time getting actual software to work versus the time protecting a system from all the unwanted software that Windows seems to attract.
I never waste so much time doing that. Actually, you must do the same under Linux to keep your distribution up to date. Now, most distributions ripped off Windows again and made nice update tools. But before it was waaay longer to update a Linux box because you had to track down package one by one as soon as a package was unsafe…and deal with dependency change as well.
Believe it or now, I consider myself as a Linux user because I use it 30% of my time. But it’s idiot like you that ruin the platform for years. THINK BEFORE YOUR SPEAK.
I manage an ISP and you my friend are the exception …. My logs are full of crap from infected bandwidth consuming viruses and spyware all from normal everyday users. We have a full staff that spends hours a day resolving MICROSOFT RELATED VULNERAVITIES so are customers can surf the web. We have to be proactive and contact the really bad ones and usally it is some kid or grandmother opening a an email looking at a website.. Easy shit like that gets them whacked… You tell them they need a get virus software or get tools top remove spyware or just get the latest updates from Microsoft and you would thinnk that you just tasked to build the next moon lander … Oh you my friend are trully the exception. You are not a loser you are just blind… Microsoft sucks and they know they do …It what keeps them in business.
Now IE comes with a really nice popup blocker turned on by default that works perfectly. The firewall is also bundled with Windows now. Anti-Spyware? They made one free and every months you get a “monthly” quiet one when you go to Windows Update that will make sure you werent stupid enough to get a spyware since the last update.
Anti-Spyware is a proof about bad security management caused by IE and the nature of Windows XP itself. I have used windows update but when I see the control panel, it list all patch around which create a lot of mess.
I never waste so much time doing that. Actually, you must do the same under Linux to keep your distribution up to date. Now, most distributions ripped off Windows again and made nice update tools. But before it was waaay longer to update a Linux box because you had to track down package one by one as soon as a package was unsafe…and deal with dependency change as well.
You are way behind the time. Debian apt-get came before Windows update system for example. “Dependencies hell” are often cause by very bad packagers themselvs. Any system has in fact dependency hell. The fact you still think moderm have to get seperate individual package just show that either your display your ignorance or you deliberately gave a false assumption.
What I like about this article is the positive attitude this girl has. Unfortunately unlike a lot of you guys.. It’s really disappointing when you guys bash linux just to have done it. Please keep the discussions up to par.
Just tell me how a small business would substitute Quick Books under Linux. There are many applications simply not available for Linux, and accounting and tax apps seem to be good examples. Do you plan to do bookkeeping in Open Office? What about specialty softweare many small businesses use only available for Windows? Yeah, if browsing the web and sending emails is all that you need, Linux can be used, after spending *weeks* learning how to set up readable true type fonts, JVM, video playing, flash/shockwave, poor Acrobat reader subsitutions lacking a years behind Adobe, etc.
There’s accounting software for Linux; there’s one commercial with competes on Windows and is available on Linux and there’s a Free program from GNU but I forget the name of it. GNU check or something? Oh, GNUcash.
Here’s another program I know nothing about:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/cbtracker/
You might wanna look for its real homepage. Freshmeat pages often get left un-updated for years.
Here I was thinking this was a sighting of the “Everywhere Girl” skipping town and shacking up with Fedora…
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24735
Why would she list “uname -a” as useful to a Linux newbie? This is a stupid article written by a neurotic pedant and approved by a fascist editor.
So when you ask for help on IRC, you can tell them
what version of kernel you are using.
Both, my eight years old niece and my 76 years old grandmother are Linux users. I got my niece a desktop for her 8th birthday and we installed Gentoo on it and on the my uncle’s PC which she also uses we’ve put Fedora.
My nice absolutely loves Gentoo and within a couple of hours she knew all the basics. She uses about any application(Firefox for browsing and Gimp for drawing and playing around with pictures are her favorites) and she already knows how to emerge new applications.
My grandmother on the other hand needed an entire afternoon to get used to the different layout, menus, etc. because she is anything but a computer person. After becoming familiar with everything she really likes it alot and finds OpenOffice quite an improvement.
These are my experiences with new distros like Fedora and Gentoo for newbies. For the initial installation of Gentoo I would still recommend some expert help but anyone can install and use Fedora right “out of the box” and about everyone finds Fedora easier to use in comparison to Windows. Fedora has become very easy to install and to use and makes a great desktop for newbies.
The problem is not Linux, but the companies who make all that software you use and do not port them to Linux, the platform is there, but none of them is porting its applications, Linux problem? I don’t think so, the problem is tha lack of porting of Adove, Apple and all those software makers.
I can’t used Fedora 4 because after installing it, I rebooted and it had crashed my boot looder, MBR. When the computer started up it just said “Error”. So I’ve never tried it, since I’ve never been able to use my computer and load into it when I have had it installed.
I agree about the newbiefriendliness of newer distros. One day I came home from work and my daughter presented me proudly a Gnome desktop on my PC… I asked her how she did it and she said “Dad, I just installed Fedora so now you can dual boot between Windows and Linux”. Everyone was stunned and our entire family has been on Linux since. All three PCs and two notebooks.
1. Again, distro compatability/API stability. If releasing iTunes for Linux was as easy as for Windows/OS X, I’m sure Apple would do it. The problems arise because everyone has a different system and the binary software doesn’t work.
I have to agree, Linux binaries are such apaint.
It would help if there where binary compatibles, that would make it easier instead of having a package system for every distribution.
Did anyone notice that Adobe releases Acrobat Reader in binary form, even in rpm, without problems?
If ISVs really WANT to distribute a binary app for linux, they can. And it has been so for YEARS. (Adobe Acrobat Reader has been available in its ugly motif form for aeons… and don’t forget Netscape in the pre-mozilla years).
Sure, the package will be a big behemoth (40Megs or so for Adobe Reader?!?), but well, windows binary apps are always like that, you’d think people are accustomed to this practice.
This is not intentionally flamebait. I’m posting as anonymous because I can’t remember my l/p.
This is someone posing as a newbie. They have too much knowledge of the concepts and terms to be a true beginner.
I agree with some of the others. This article reads like a fake. What were her reasons for trying linux on the desktop? If all she wanted to do is just surf the web and chat with friends I’d hardly consider that a reason to switch from Windows, especially when the Windows clients offer more. It sounds exactly like it was written from a linux user for a linux user just so they can identify with each other.
“What were her reasons for trying linux on the desktop?”
I spend a hell of a lot of my time in “zeolot linux user mode” convincing my friends to use it, 90% of the time I install a dual boot for them too. What are her reasons, simple someone she knows uses linux and convinced her to give it a go, why else do new users come to linux? And she hasn’t “switched from Windows”, not with a dual boot, in fact she points out that she still switches back now and then. Can’t see why people view this as a ‘fake’, plainly this is a user who has gained some linux experience and is now commenting on the progress from noob to user.
This ‘review’ holds merit as an insight into how non-technical users see linux. It matches quite well with the comments that some of my friends make now that they use linux.
My husband is into Linux and I guess, wanted to pass it on to me.. that’s the only reason =)
Although I do appreciate light-hearted reviews, this wasn’t worthy of a usenet post, let alone a slot in osnews.
GIMP is no way near Photoshop in terms of professional features, no support for CMYK, Pantone, etc. And to add to the list, what about replacement for Quark/InDesign – nothing with the features needed for pro graphic work. No replacement for Flash either (not talking Flash player here but Flash authoring).
“3. Because games are considerably more complex than office suites? Think input libraries, network libraries, sound libraries, graphics libraries”
Office suites have those same issues — and more.
” … Oh, and last I saw, most people compile Open Office from source.”
That’s simply false. This statement proves you’re putting out more noise than knowledge.
Office suites have to deal with hardware-accelerated sound and 3D-accelerated graphics? Give me a break.
@Anonymous: No, it’s not easy, but it’s guaranteed to work on *ALL* units out there once it’s ported, because all of those units are identical. You can’t possibly tell me that Linux systems are homogeneous.
I too thought this article was written weirdly, but then I don’t read too many articles written by non-technical females about Linux/Redhat.
For those of you calling foul about the MPlayer situation and her taking time to get it working, and that seeming strange….firstly I know girls who do have this kind of determination and would rather read or ask than be defeated, “no” is never an option
Secondly, can I remind you of major issues with media player with some formats where MS do not supply the codec? I remember issues with Xvid, DivX to name but two. People often struggle for hours with Realplayer and Quicktime causing system issues.
Personally, when I’ve talking to people about linux distro’s they back off when they hear it’s “different” but curiosity eventually gets the better of them when they actually try it out, “well it’s not THAT different”.
Some aspects of Linux are still challanging, but there’s an awful lot of people who enjoy the challenge
Distro’s like MEPIS are constantly mopping up disgruntled windows users and helping them through the difficult initial phases, surely the greatest thing about Linux is it’s increasingly diverse user base?
Geek IS chic
Although the article sounds suspicious whether its genuine, I have this to say –
My wife tried Linux, Windows and Mac and her finding is Mac >> Windows >>>>>> Linux
She was completely lost in linux when it came to audio/video editing. She is not a newbie to computers, but by no means even an intermediate. She could easily do browsing and emailing under Linux. Given time, she could eventually figure out other tasks but thats the point. She doesn’t want to waste lot of time finding it out when its just supposed to work.
She pretty much uses just the Mac today with occasionally using Windoze. She hasn’t touched Linux since. She’s also tried using BeOS and QNX after I kept bugging her to try the other OS’s just for comparing.
She had some relevant questions —
1. Windows is just windows ( one version pretty much, XP ), Mac is pretty much just one version, so why then there are so many to choose from for linux. its not only confusing, but a needless waste of time programming them all to do the same. eg. Abiword v/s openoffice
2. Why does she have to see so many choices for the same task leaving her confused. eg. the Internet menu had like 5 entries. Office menu had 3 entries, Photo manipulation had another 5 entries ( ImageMagick, Gimp, Gphoto, etc.) It would be best to have just one entry ala Mac where it not only just works but its very intuitive.
And my finding is similar —
Mac >> Linux >>>>>>> Windows
I was a long time linux time but I’ve been using a Mac now since the past 1.5 years and today have almost stopped using Linux or Windows. It was tough initially but now I don’t even realize the existence of my dual-boot Linux/Windoze box.
1. Windows is just windows ( one version pretty much, XP ), Mac is pretty much just one version, so why then there are so many to choose from for linux. its not only confusing, but a needless waste of time programming them all to do the same. eg. Abiword v/s openoffice
Windows XP <> NOT one version at all
The majority of home users worldwide are still on win9x. The majority of business users worldwide are using Win2k.
In the western world, Win XP is only in the majority in new machines for home users. Business users reformat and install Win2k.
Worse still are the office suites, with Office 97 not opening Office 2000 files, and Office 2000 not opening Office XP files, and thay is from the same company…..
2. Why does she have to see so many choices for the same task leaving her confused. eg. the Internet menu had like 5 entries. Office menu had 3 entries, Photo manipulation had another 5 entries ( ImageMagick, Gimp, Gphoto, etc.) It would be best to have just one entry ala Mac where it not only just works but its very intuitive.
This is called CHOICE… now I know nearly every post on here about Linux will mention choice, but I think you have failed to grasp the benefits…..
Now you might be sitting in fromt of a top of the range PC with all the bells and whistles you could have included when you bought it, so you install a big fat DE like Gnome or KDE, and on top of that you run OpenOffice, Gimp, Firefox etc
OR
You might have a 10 year old pentium 1 with 32mb RAM.
So you install a light DE like XFCE or Blackbox, and use light apps like Abiword, Scribus, Dillo etc
See, it is not just the just of WHAT you run, it is a choice of what you can run it ON !
I honestly do not understand why so many people switch to macs, as we use them at work, and they freeze more than Windows machines. I do not know why they do it, but it appears that Apple have taken the FreeBSD core, applied their own patches which has made it unstable, but it is possibly the most unstable system at the minute.
BTW If Apple (or its fanboys) disagree with this, I am fully prepared to prove it in a court.
Everyone keeps mentioning GIMP, sure it’s free, but don’t exclude other ones, even if they’re not free. We need to support many programs for Linux, mainly if they’re really good. There is also another image program called Pixel. More info here:
http://pixel32.box.sk
That’s what I thought, too.
“I totally made this cool file in gedit to save my fun commands like rpm -ivh and fdisk to type into the black TV-looking thingy” or whatever. Truth is stranger than fiction but this one is just too weird.
A real newb wouldn’t even touch the terminal. Or at least would only do it as a last resort, and with great unhappiness.
She was told to use it by the people helping her. If someone says “type this to fix the problem”, they will try it. If she wasn’t interested in trying new things, she would have stayed with Windows in the first place.
“If a *girl* can use Linux, then every dumbass can use it.”
(don’t flame; this is how I understood the article, and it is quite sexist if you ask me)
From the article:
“uname -a (showing your version of kernel)”
Well, I am sure every “noob” that cannot configure MPlayer needs to know the version of the kernel…
Or don’t you remember the article where the husband had his wife install Windows and Mandrake and compared the two.
Mandrake won, needless to say.
I had to learn Windows and Linux over the last three years simultaneously (and I’m 56 years old – although I DO have a computing background) and I can say there isn’t a penny’s worth of difference between them as far as usability and learning them is concerned. (Reliability and security are another matter in which Linux wins hands down.)
The only issue Linux has with regard to migration is the fact that it does take time and energy to move everything over and get used to running Linux full time. I haven’t even done that yet. I still use Windows XP more than Linux, but that’s because I have so much crap to set up on Linux to match what I’m doing on Windows that I’m intimidated by the work. But I’ll get it done eventually since I know Linux is better overall.
Actually, this girl is doing more with Linux than I do at this point. OTOH, she hasn’t installed Oracle9i, either.
Fortunately, even on Windows, I do virtually all my work using free software. Almost nothing I use is proprietary except Nero Burning ROM and WinDVD – and I have free alternatives to those that I use occasionally.
On Linux I have literally gigabytes of apps and utilities I want to try out, all of which are free. It’s just going to take time to get it all set up the way I want it.
Incidentally, I use GIMP for web-work professionally. Far from it suffering “less professional” features I find its tools are less aggressive than Photoshops. Simple things like brightness/contrast on Photoshop quickly degrade the image quality, whereas, Gimps tools seem capable of more controlled transitions.
The filters are also improving, I find the channel controls and colour correction far more useful than Photoshops, maybe it’s just my preference.
Oh, and there are work arounds for CMYK, a plug in and full support is on the cards, not that it matters for web or for someone just starting out, and btw it’s free!
Hmm … yeah, perhaps you get a point there.
It doesn’t change the fact that the review looks fabricated. 🙂
“Hmm … yeah, perhaps you get a point there. ”
No , I always have the point , and your not grading me at all your not a teacher ( one of us is ) or qualified to even participate in this discussion at all and when I dont have the point , because I am wrong and am proven wrong I admit to it. It never happened so far in any discussion I had with you “Linux is poo”.
“It doesn’t change the fact that the review looks fabricated. :-)”
Actually , it does , you cant read properly , your understanding of the entire text is then false and any perception you might feel are based of false comprehension.
Whats a Fact is that your not after the truth , cant accept reality and are not without profound hatred for GNU/Linux “Linux Is Poo”.
– Moulinneuf
Of course, you’re a teacher, a GNU/Linux expert, and many other things, right? What you are is a nugget.
You still have yet to cite your sources of information in that previous thread. Until then, I’m ignoring you completely, because you are not a credible person.
“Of course, you’re a teacher, a GNU/Linux expert, and many other things”
Yes , normal people are many things , its a concept you have a trouble to grasp. Even you are a little more then what you think you are.
– I get/got paid to teach GNU/Linux( BSD and Windows too ).
– I am a GNU/Linux expert because I passed many certifications and recognised classes and I am a ressource for many others.
– People call me a GNU/Linux advocate which is true in a sense , but I am more a GNU/Linux user and promoter.
“What you are is a nugget.”
No , but then again , it must be real easy to pass the nugget Linux Is Poo certification : just have to be in disagreement with Linux Is Poo and proove all he say as worthless.
“You still have yet to cite your sources of information in that previous thread.”
No , I said it whas me , I am a reliable source , thats what you have a problem with. I even provided Apple definitive answer from Apple.com developper site.
” Until then, I’m ignoring you completely, because you are not a credible person.”
The not credible would be you , I provided all the info needed and official links and did explainin the fact and reality , all you do is say “your wrong” and “offer me what I ask which is irrelevant”.
Sorry Linux is Poo, but your posting seems to insult any girl using Linux.
My experience, which is only half done, is making me think furiously about what usability really is. I am installing Linux for a small charity here, largely because they have no money and old hardware but want certain apps which are available free on Linux. With much trepidation, I installed WindowMaker – the only Desktop that will run on their antique hardware. Then I demo’d it. My audience has been basically intelligent non-technical retired people, who know how to use Windows at a basic level. Well, it turns out that usability is different from what you might expect. They all, without exception, reacted with concern when they knew the system was likely to change, and all, after seeing it, said something like, well of course I can manage THAT. Now, they are not expected to install anything, just use the apps, and the apps are accessed by double clicking the icons. But they also had the exact same reaction to multiple windows as the lady in the story is reported as having – Oh yes, how convenient. We have not rolled it all out yet, so the jury is still out. But indications really are that the Windows interface (or the X interface for that matter) may be, in some contexts, more of a problem than a solution. On the same subject, I am supporting a couple of people on OpenOffice, and seriously thinking about showing them Lyx. And when I describe Lyx to them, their reaction is very positive indeed. They really look forward to getting rid of formatting while typing. Is it possible that WYSIWYG is similarly part of the problem, not part of the solution? Is it possible that emulating Windows and Word is not going to make Linux usable on the desktop? Is it possible the received wisdom on usability has got it totally wrong?
hmm, im sure that there is a lot of window managers out there that are lighter then windowmaker…
I have not yet come to any conclusions but I do not think that Lyx or its engine, latex, is really preferable to a WYSIWYG type of document handler. The argument is that you separate the formatting from the content with a typesetting language like TeX or LateX but that is not really true in my experience. You do end up providing formatting information within your document with the disadvantage that you do not know what the output of your typesetting commands will be until you run it through latex. And then it’s a bug-hunt like it is with any other programming language if it fails to “compile.” On the other hand the output is beautiful, and like any other challenge it can be rewarding.
In the late 1980’s many physics and mathematics journals required manuscript submissions to be in latex. It’s been a long time since I have worked in physics (it’s mostly a memory) so I don’t know if it is still true. Life’s necessities have led me into more practical endeavors in medicine. The contrast between these two realms is great. In the context of this discussion the most curious is that online submissions of your medical research in most medical journals has to be in Microsoft Office. It always struck me as odd that they would require submission of scientific articles in a proprietary format, but alas, that is the world we live in.
You may be right, and what is true is, when you change what someone writes with, its a much more fundamental change than when you change how they start their applications. All the same, what I notice is that for people who are uncomfortable with computers, the thing that is most disturbing to them about WP programs is the formatting and layout stuff. The thing that attracts them in the description of Lyx is that it will just do what they expect. The people I support are forever doing things like accidentally changing from insert to overwrite mode, changing the style so that the font gets bigger, screwing up the indents. All this seems bizarre and unintuitive to them. Of course, the worst thing is correction as you type – I turned it off, but before I did, it drove them nuts!
The problem is, they have to engage with layout and formatting when hey are not particularly concerned with appearance at the stage of writing. They are really only bothered about getting their thoughts down on paper, and my tentative conclusion is that the packages are the main obstacle to this. Whether they will feel any different about Lyx though, its an open question….
Dont EVER write an article for OSNEWS again please. Your dribble was unbelievably hard to swallow. Entertain your girlfriends at a tea party with this. And take your first draft and put it to good use, in the fireplace.
Dont EVER write an comment for OSNEWS again please. Your CAPTIALS don’t improve your point…
“Instead, manufacturers figure “Why the hell should we invest the time and money in developing this driver if they’re only going to break it in a month?”.”
and this way of thinking is the real problem. instead of making the driver in house they should release all needed info so that the community themself could build and maintain said driver.
another argument i have read against closed source drivers is that if they end up creating a kernel panic it cant be fixed and therefor any crash log that points to a problem inside a closed source driver is just discarded by the kernel development community as unfixable. maybe the person posting the crash report is told to contact the driver developers.
i dont recall linus’s exact words but from what i understand he fears that trying to maintain a stable api will result in code that is badly in need of replacement will hang around as not to break the api and similar. allso, they are not so free when it comes to try new ideas as they allways have to keep the stability of the api in mind.
basicly, the rapid development of features in linux may come from the fact that they can break anything remotely similar to an api as needed.
1. the review is real, just edited slightly by me to make it more readable (the writer, my wife, does not write English as a native language, so all in all I think she did very well), however, I wanted to maintain her sense of style in writing as much as I could, so I left most of it intact. I have the original OpenOffice doc she emailed me for those of you doubters.
2. I installed fedora core release 3 for her several months ago, and configured it with apt-get amongst other things,
however, i wanted her to learn/dabble with linux so i did not fix the usual stuff like mplayer/mp3/ntfs etc. I let her learn by reading/talking to me and others who have gone through this before.
3. She uses it daily, the laptop is 99% of the time using linux, only rarely does she boot into XP. This fact quite took me by surprise, I really didn’t think she’d be bothered with linux after a few days, but she stuck with it for months.
4. I am surprised and dismayed by so many people complaining about a ‘linux’ review, calling it fake/rubbish/crap. I wonder do these people use linux or windows ? I wonder do they even care ?
I stand by the review, and support Annelie for writing it, it was interesting and fun to do, and interesting to hear what she felt about using linux on a day to day basis.
cheers
anyweb
Recently my sister in law switched to Fedora. She told my wife about it who has no clue about computers and finally convinced her to give it a try. I was at a conference at the time and while I was gone my wife had burned installation CDs, installed Fedora, and gotten used to Linux within a day. She totally loves it and says she won’t touch a Windows PC anymore. It’s been the first time I saw her that excited about computers and now she even teaches me some stuff once in a while.
WOW, where did you find a girl like that?
Your supposed to say that Linux is not usable, or else your fake, wrong, zealous, or just all three.
**roll eyes**
The GUIs available are very mature, being either equal or superior to all he other interfaces out there be it windows or OSX.
The thing is what MAY be difficult for the linux newb is getting your linux box to that POINT. The point where you can play any big video/audio format, surf the web, write a document. The point varies between users. My point is fairly high since i want loads of eye candy like 3ddesktop, fbsplash, an os bar =P, xorg and composite management, programming ide and tools.
The thing that people fail to realize is that usability is relative. Who are you to tell me that I or anybody else cant use linux effectively =/.
Linux GUIs look and perform like shit compared to OS X.
Ohhh, running out of argument? A Linux distro is very customizatible. You can use any DE in Linux, heck you can ever made a Linux DE like OS X without paying an expensive application. So Linux is Poo, if it is the only shot you can do, then you proved yourself to be stupid in face of many poster.
I only went into the comments here to check if i was the only one having this feeling. Especially the part about NTFS is completely unmotivated – she just knows that she has to “do the NTFS mount” to get her old stuff??
Who says I just ‘knew’?
I was constantly supported =)
Sorry anyweb and MissLia, but I don’t believe you are the real peeps runnin the website or story. The story is way too fudged up to be real.
you are delusional. the story is not fudged up or unreal, its a persons description of what they liked/disliked/found confusing/found easy about linux (in this case, fedora core release 3).
I run http://www.linux-noob.com and have been posting here on osnews.com for years, not only that i’ve posted reviews here too under my real name, Niall C. Brady.
for your info here is a recap of same:-
smoothwall express 2.0 http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5897
getting to know fedora core 1
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5066
worlds first look at shrike
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3119
ask Eugenia if i’m fake, or David Adams for that matter,
they’ll back me up
regards
anyweb.
What is fake here? It is only some windows zealots who seem to have a problem with Linux’ success among newbies.
Why the hell does a girl need to know the kernel version?
Or the su or pwd command?
I consider myself as a not-entirely-noob user (can compile kernel, edit confs etc.), but of all commands she described I use about 70%.
And it’s definetly not a noobish way of starting gthumb from a console.
That’s the only way I was taught =)
This “review” is obviously a humorosly deceptive “work of fiction”.
While it was good for a laugh, it also did provide the last little bit of proof that OSNews has jumped the shark:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
Next time, post this “gem” from linux-noob.com:
Wow, this is some neat stuff! Let me start off by saying linux rocks and after ive been using it for the past 3 minutes, im completely confused! Im fed up with windows! I cant stand it anymore. I must learn linux! Im sick of the thousands and thousands of viruses and spyware that windows has. Im sick of working in excel for hours and having it crash losing a ton of data plots! Anyway…. i was wondering if there’s a tutorial on how to use this OS? I need step by step instructions on how to use this! Ive used it before, but gave up on learning it becuase its so damn confusing! I really need some serious HELP! SOrry for my noobish ness, please some teach me! Thanks again!
This so-called “review” and the subsequent invasion of the thread by many new identities and the voting down of any critical comments… is further proof of OSNews jumping the shark:
Many have noted the shark episode as the moment when they realized the show was no longer worth watching, when it became impossible to maintain a certain suspension of disbelief. Even before “jumping the shark” was employed as a popular culture term, the episode in question was many times cited as an example of what happens to otherwise high-quality programs when they stay on the air too long.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
“What is fake here? It is only some windows zealots who seem to have a problem with Linux’ success among newbies.”
Word. That is the absolute truth. Nothing but trolling zealots here trashing this woman’s experience with FC3.
It’s also a known fact that Microsoft has paid astro-turfers, who post regularily on sites like OSNews, and trash Linux at any opportunity. These idiots are usually obvious by their ignorant, inflammatory remarks, as well as their spin when confronted with the real facts. The spin going on here from the Windows zealots/astro-turfers is that the article is a fake. When proven otherwise (with back up links), the zealots just create more spin.
I applaud the article, the author, and her husband who helped her. It was an honest description of how Linux can be easy for the newbie.
I have my own similar story. I recently got my 71 yr old Mother, a total computer illiterate, using Linspire, after having to constantly fix her problems when she initially went with Windows. She is now happily, easily, using Linspire with absolute zero problems. She is as big of a noob as you can get. She didn’t even know how to double click, surf the web, get email, etc. But she’s doing that with the greatest of ease using Linspire.
Thank you =)
And kudos to your mum! :p
Uh guys, I am a MacOSX user.
The fact that it took you a month just demonstrates a lack of skill in Windows development, not a problem with Windows itself.
Oh, and I’ve updated about 15 people to SP2 so far. Not one has had any issues (drivers, especially). I call bullshit on the SP2 complaint. The SP2 issues were blown completely out of proportion by the media.
It was hardly as bad as everyone made it out to be.
The fact that it took you a month just demonstrates a lack of skill in Windows development, not a problem with Windows itself.
Even if you’re right; you just flushed that “Windows is easier to install/maintain” argument down the toilet.
If a veteran Windows developer can’t maintain a working Windows XP machine, who can?
(By veteran I mean: Been writing user/kernel mode software for Windows since NT 3.51)
Oh, and I’ve updated about 15 people to SP2 so far. Not one has had any issues (drivers, especially). I call bullshit on the SP2 complaint.
[General rant]
Call bullshit? Geez! What are you, a 3 year old?
At the times the OSNews talkbacks feel like a conversation with 8 y/o Aminem wannabies.
For God’s sake, grow up!
[/General rant]
The SP2 issues were blown completely out of proportion by the media.
It was hardly as bad as everyone made it out to be.
YMMV.
/We/ had problems with SP2.
/You/ didn’t.
/We/ are not /you/.
This is it?
All you had to counter my claims was: SP2 works just fine on my machine? (Oh, I forget, SP2 works on your machine and I’m an incompetent Windows XP user… I forgot.)
Yeah i have no idea where people get this conception that if something works for them, it must work for everyone else.
Along the same line of logic … /you/ are not /everyone/. Just because /you/ had problems doesn’t mean the /majority/ of people had problems.
And oh noes … I made swear! Oh poo … I’m such a bad Eminem-loving little boy. Right. Get real. I’m sure you’re a saint when it comes to Linux f*cking up as usual.
The majority of people are reporting a problem , my take is you dont even know you have a problem , you pass crash and bsod and virii and spyware as normal for an OS.
“Linux f*cking up as usual”
Strange how your the only one who is not backing up is comments with any details or links.
The majority of people are reporting a problem , my take is you dont even know you have a problem , you pass crash and bsod and virii and spyware as normal for an OS.
“Linux f*cking up as usual”
Strange how your the only one who is not backing up is comments with any details or links.
You want details:
Case 1: Steps to reproduce:
A. Install XP; Install SP2; auto-update to latest.
B. Install .NET framework.
C. Install NIS2005 (Norton Internet Security 2005).
D. Cut ADSL connection (due to ISP problems) during NIS2005 auto-upgrade.
E. Watch Windows go blue.
F. Try uninstall NIS2005. It’ll fail. Unlike Linux, windows doesn’t have OS controller package installer/uninstaller; no way to force a downgrade.
G. Use the XP’s system restore to revert to semi-working copy of XP.
H. Uninstall NIS2005. Try reinstalling. No go. Switch to McAfee.
I. Try install any type of firewall software to replace NIS2005. Windows no longer detects the new anti-virus or the new firewall. Both remain disabled.
J. Windows update no longer work; BITS services is dead.
K. Trying fixing registry by hand. Doesn’t help.
L. Only known solution to above problems: Reinstall. (Type “Bits services error” in google. I’m sure you can manage it.)
M. Reinstall XP.
Case 2: Steps to reproduce:
A. Take working Windows XP services, switch to Windows 2K3.
B. Security Tokens no longer work.
C. Impersonate user problem.
D. /Severe/ security problems when working with Windows 2K/XP file servers.
E. Modify code to suite 2K3 security changes.
F. Windows 2K3 still doesn’t co-exist with Windows 2K/XP.
Case 3: Steps to reproduce.
A. Take a working 2.4 kernel driver.
B. Switch to 2.6.
C. Replace semi-deprecated task lets to work-queues.
D. Replace sleep_on_xxx with wait_on calls.
E. Done.
As for case #1, before you start claiming that this is Norton’s fault let me just say that:
A. Only in Windows applications install themselves and are allowed to modify OS files. (For instance, a Fedora RPM cannot modify a file that belongs to another RPM, not can it change the OS settings).
B. Only in Windows an application may fail to uninstall itself, taking the OS with it.
C. Only Windows cannot recover from a minor configuration corruption that in other OS could have been fixed by editing a test configuration file (or better yet, taking a working copy from another Linux machine.)
D. Only in Windows, I’m forced to upgrade the OS (else I get no support) and the OS development tools. Only in Windows, I have no way to back-port my work (or other people work) in-order to prevent needless upgrades. (Like the upgrade to 2K3)
I can continue.
Now how’s that for details, huh?
Oh… sory for my Piglish, I just got back from work and I’m a bit sleepy.
A. Only in Windows applications install themselves and are allowed to modify OS files. (For instance, a Fedora RPM cannot modify a file that belongs to another RPM, not can it change the OS settings).
I call BULLSHIT:
http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm/s1-rpm-inside-scripts.html
B. Only in Windows an application may fail to install itself, taking the OS with it.
I call BULLSHIT:
http://opensource.ca.com/projects/ingres/forum/10/609440555489
and
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=8ce4d66f2938149ee9…
C. Only Windows cannot recover from a minor configuration corruption that in other OS could have been fixed by editing a test configuration file (or better yet, taking a working copy from another Linux machine.)
Now this one is just silly. You even provided a counter-example yourself:
G. Use the XP’s system restore to revert to semi-working copy of XP.
no need to edit some clusterfuck text file.
Only in Windows, I have no way to back-port my work (or other people work) in-order to prevent needless upgrades. (Like the upgrade to 2K3)
I don’t know what your problem with NT service security is, but 99% of the time it is a case of PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair). You are probably tyring to fit NT’s security model into the UNIX peanut gallery mold. Take some time to read about and understand the way NT’s security API works before you jump into coding. I you follow this blog for any length of time (http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/) you would be amazed at the insane lengths that they go to to keep Windows backwards compatible.
A. Only in Windows applications install themselves and are allowed to modify OS files. (For instance, a Fedora RPM cannot modify a file that belongs to another RPM, not can it change the OS settings).
I call BULLSHIT:
” rel=”nofollow”>http://opensource.ca.com/projects/ingres/forum/10/609440555489
A. Grow up. (again).
B. Even you bothered to read your own link before posting it? Let me help you:
Check the solution to the problem:
Try adding -f and –noscripts to the parameters passed to rpm. This should allow removal of the packages from the rpm database. However since this suppresses execution of the uninstall scripts, you’ll have to manually remove any files installed for Ingres to do a complete clean uninstall.
As for cleaning the files, just unpack the uninstall script and clean the file yourself. I doubt that I could have done the same with any Windows application, as I cannot view/modify/control the MSI/InstallShield installer.
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/) you would be amazed at the insane lengths that they go to to keep Windows backwards compatible.
“You are probably tyring to fit NT’s security model into the UNIX peanut gallery mold”?
I’ve been developing software for Windows (and OS/2) long before I even touched any type of Unix/Linux.
Most of my code was ported from Windows to Linux/Unix and not the other way around.
Just to give you a small example: I’m building ACLs in a certain order; while it worked just fine under Windows NT and 2K it sent XP does the blue screen lane. Not an immediate crash mind you, a long, slow, kernel corruption that happened only on SMP machines.
Even if I’m an idiot, how come I managed to drop XP like a hot-potato from a simple user-land service?
I assume that you have the programming experience to back your unfounded claims? (Beyond using google?)
Oh.
Next time I see an “I call bullshit”, will the best last time I spend time reading your posts.
Trying to fix the post:
C. Only Windows cannot recover from a minor configuration corruption that in other OS could have been fixed by editing a test configuration file (or better yet, taking a working copy from another Linux machine.)
Now this one is just silly. You even provided a counter-example yourself:
G. Use the XP’s system restore to revert to semi-working copy of XP.
no need to edit some clusterfuck text file.
And yet it didn’t work.
While I could get the machine to stop BSODing on me, after the restore Windows update (or actually the BITS service) stopped working; Windows A/V and F/W support stopped working; etc, etc.
If anything, System restore failed miserably.
Only in Windows, I have no way to back-port my work (or other people work) in-order to prevent needless upgrades. (Like the upgrade to 2K3)
I don’t know what your problem with NT service security is, but 99% of the time it is a case of PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair). You are probably tyring to fit NT’s security model into the UNIX peanut gallery mold. Take some time to read about and understand the way NT’s security API works before you jump into coding. I you follow this blog for any length of time (http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/) you would be amazed at the insane lengths that they go to to keep Windows backwards compatible.
“You are probably tyring to fit NT’s security model into the UNIX peanut gallery mold”?
I’ve been developing software for Windows (and OS/2) long before I even touched any type of Unix/Linux machine.
Most of my code was ported from Windows to Linux/Unix and not the other way around.
Just to give you a small example: I’m building ACLs in a certain order; while it worked just fine under Windows NT and 2K it sent XP does the blue screen lane. Not an immediate crash mind you, a long, slow, kernel corruption that happened only on SMP machines.
Even if I’m an idiot, how come I managed to drop XP like a hot-potato from a simple user-land service?
I assume that you have the programming experience to back your unfounded claims? (Beyond using google?)
Oh.
Next time I see an “I call bullshit”, will the best last time I spend time reading your posts.
Thank you for the details, if nothing else.
>> Norton Internet Security 2005).
Nothing can help you when you install bad software. Most windows people wouldn’t go near norton with a 30-foot pole.
Microsoft Fanboy
Nothing can help you when you install bad software. Most windows people wouldn’t go near norton with a 30-foot pole.
Sadly enough, I had a free upgrade copun and I used it.
Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t even think about using NIS2005.
*However*,
An OS, any OS, must be able to recover from a bad install.
Because MS uses a non-reproducible DLL registration (by non-reproducible I mean: I cannot take a working chunk of registry from one machine and fix my machine with it) and because MS choose to let applications install themselves (with no way to force a clean uninstall), once I made the mistake of installing NIS2005, I was effectively doomed.
Not even system rescue could help me.
Sure, I can botch a Linux installation by installing a bad kernel/glibc/crt; But I can always boot using a LiveCD Linux and replace the defective software.
In Windows, I couldn’t just reinstall the XP’s security center or the BITs server to fix the OS. I could only fix the problems by reinstalling the OS.
Gilboa
This topic has induced me to ask the question to the article author and maybe some other people here, because I seriously don’t understand some thing.
Why such a newbie would switch to Linux from Windows?
OK, I know you’ll say “spyware/viruses/security”, but I think it’s not the real problem if you will:
1. Work under non-Administrative account.
2. Install any free firewall.
3. Set WindowsUpdate to automatically download and install all updates.
4. use Firefox/Opera to browse and Thunderbird/The Bat/etc for email.
Thats all, no spyware, no worms.
So my point is, if all the user is doing is usual home tasks like surfing/email/multimedia/games/chat/documents/photos editing and so on, whats the REAL advantages/motivation to make such a switch?
1. Work under non-Administrative account.
Many applications badly work as non-Adminstrative user forcing them to use admin account.
2. Install any free firewall.
The number of free firewall for Windows is shrinking. Now you have to pay to get a very good quality of software firewall. Still require some research to find them.
3. Set WindowsUpdate to automatically download and install all updates.
Most update requires reboot especially when it comes to anti-spywares and several application.
If they’re going to learn that much why not learn Linux and be on a Free platform?
No, you are not a credible source. When you state numbers such as “Microsoft only has 68% of the market share”, I expect to see a real source of information, not “Me, I’m an expert”.
And you teaching Linux/BSD/Windows … J. Christ … that’s terrible.
“No, you are not a credible source.”
Thanks , If I dont pass as a liar source for you it means I am more credible then I tought.
“When you state numbers such as “Microsoft only has 68% of the market share” ”
Microsoft as only 68% of the Market share on Desktop down from 92% , what can I say I like accurate figures from real sources , I also trust Microsoft own numbers too.
You should see the number of Desktop who are still on Microsoft Windows 95 , 98 and 2000 , those are pretty impresives numbers.
“And you teaching Linux/BSD/Windows … J. Christ … that’s terrible.”
No , whats terrible is your use of the name of the son of god and your blaspheming , and the thinking of that making such a comment will give you any credibility.
Question for you , moron , if Microsoft windows XP is so good why do people need to have you ( yes right like its really true ) install SP 2 for them , which is more security patchs to fixes there own vulnerabilities ?
– Moulinneuf
Please cite your source which shows Moulinoof’s lack of credibility.
If you’re going to be a dick, at least do a good job of it
.
When reading the article I can’t help it but think this is some kind of advertisment for Fedora, typed by a Fedora guy pretending to be a “newbie Windows girl”.
LOL
If she can do all this, and is just a girl…
When she became a tennager she will be programing the next NASA Space Shutle.
When she became a women she will brake into any computer system in the world and she will rule the world!
Well, in the world where I live, there are women who can code, others who design stunning web sites, makes incredible graphics with their computers. Wait… My Programming teacher was a girl last year, and the one responsible for the Oracle lab too…
Hum, definitly the only girls you know are anime-tentacle-porn ones…
Tip: There’s a real world outside your room…
Windows requires updates just like *every* *other* *operating system* *on* *the* *planet*.
BTW … cite your sources. I’ll keep asking until you do. You quietly crept away from answering in the other thread. I’m not letting this go. I’ve dealt with people like you before — and your type never cites their sources of information, because there aren’t any.
“Windows requires updates”
Then why do they charge for SP2 like its a new upgrade if its just updates as you put it … I guess you just got caught in your own web of lies.
“like *every* *other* *operating system* *on* *the* *planet*.”
Every other OS offer updates for free , they charge for the service , they charge for upgrade or for new OS.
“BTW … cite your sources. I’ll keep asking until you do.”
Me …
“You quietly crept away from answering in the other thread. ”
No , I said me there and I am saying me here. Your reading problem is in cause again.
“I’m not letting this go.”
Letting what go ? You got the answer the Source is : ME
“I’ve dealt with people like you before”
Not going to even wonder a guess as to what “people like you” means.
“and your type never cites their sources of information”
I did actually : ME and showed where I got the info that answer you :
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Porting/Conceptual/Porting…
The problem you have is you cant accept the fact that I am always right and your always wrong , your bound to say something right because even wrong people do get it right once in a while.
“because there aren’t any.” :
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Porting/Conceptual/Porting…
About 2 years ago, I was sick of dealing with my wife’s win2k laptop. She only uses it for mail, web, IM, so I said screw it and installed Fedora Core 2 on it.
She was pefectly happy on it. A two or three day learning curve, but that was ok because she quickly discovered ksirtet (tetris) and resumed the addiction she had gotten over years ago.
I upgraded her to Core 3 and things were good. When I decided I needed a new server, and also wanted her on something besides that 12″ moniotro on a celron 650, I got a dell dimension 4700 and stuck freebsd 5.3 on there, and that became her box.
Again, she’s perfectly happy on there.
To her, and for what her needs are, the OS is of little consequence. She’s very proficient with computers (she does analytical work all day and recently had to start using Emacs and an SQL client–command line– at work), but for her needs at home, she’s perfectly happy.
AND she loves that she’s never once had to reboot, or ask me to come fix something.
I say I believe it is fake becasue linux-noob is her husbands web site. She is able to use Linux because she has someone living with her that can do the more difficul things for her. I did some quick research to get this information. It was not difficult but I am not going to post her info here.
Jody well done for finding information that is right there in your face (just read the comments)
And I am blogging, using the mail etc etc, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be very technical, does it?
Anyway, I have been using Linux everyday for months now so I am learning… =)
If all the end user is going to do is web, email, text documents and watch movies then any modern PC OS will do the trick. The article could have been “Noob girl learns BeOS” or “Noob girl learns OS/2” and it would have read the same.
Linux’s best chance is in attracting noobs. Expert Windows users are able to protect themselves and get all the benefits of Windows with few of the disadvantages.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/16/computer.worm/index.htm…
There are no 2.2 kernel spreading worms….
What no snappy reply from the Winders fellas…
In my neck of the woods we have, “installfests”, regularly where you drag in any old hardware and a top gun will install linux and configure it for you. You do not have to sleep with them although you may want to after using it.
Its amazing to me that all you Linux/windows/mac zealots are out there still bickering about which operating system is better for the mass desktop market. Frankly, all of you disgust me. Computers are tools, not religious idles for you to worship with your own custom brand of adornment (your operating system). In my opinion you all will be debating the Marat’s of “Linux on the desktop”, “windows on the desktop (really)”, and whatever other arguments you creeps out here throw at each other. You guys are going to be debating these subjects on your way to Hell!
Hell is a place where computers don’t exist, desktop environments are irrelevant, torching by daemons is always the norm, and all of you will suffer for eternity if you don’t realize that computers are only tools and not idles (after all you wouldn’t want to make God mad would you?)
As for the Girl, good luck with your experiences with Linux. I hope that all who want to switch to Linux have fun doing it. Just don’t come out here anymore and preach hell-fire-and-brimstone messages like “if you don’t use Linux you’re an idiot”, “the open-source revolution is happening, and if you don’t get on board, you’re out in the cold”, etc.
PS: I’m a happy windows user, but I don’t preach the gospel of Microsoft everywhere I go.
Thank you, o Enlightened One.
I’ve seen quite a few very interesting posts here already (and a share of less ‘interesting’ posts, such as is the fate of all forums…). But, to be blunt, your post is nothing more than a bashing.
I do apologize for my “bashing” comment last night. I admit that at the time, I was a bit angry at all of the zealots that seem to congregate here. I do apologize for being rood, but I do stand by the point I failed, because of my own anger, to make: zealotry isn’t getting anyone anywhere.
The windows zealots claim that windows is easier to install than Linux. This doesn’t make sense, as quite a few people I know couldn’t install it from scratch anyway. The Linux zealots claim that Linux is ready for the desktop, and most people can sue it just fine like windows. This doesn’t make sense either, as many of the Linux documentation (guides, how-to documents, etc) still assume that you have at least basic knowledge of the command line. This makes sense for complex tasks like recompiling a kernel, but not for simpler things like installing packages (I know there are graphical front-ends to many of the package managers, but what if that front-end becomes unavailable).
I do use windows, but am also mindful that windows, Linux, Mac, and any OS shine and fail in one area or another. If you want to use Linux, go ahead; if you want to use windows, go ahead; and if you don’t have a problem with any particular OS (like many nontechnical people, I would imagine), than use whatever works for you and let other people use what works for them. The open-source philosophy is about choice, so, in the spirit of all freedom-loving people, let computer users have choice to sue proprietary software or not.
I’ve been reading osnews for a long time now, and have been most dismayed at the amount of “windows sucks”, “Linux sucks”, “all other OSes suck”, etc. What I said was a little harsh, but the point still remains: zealotry has done more damage to the computer industry than helped the computer industry as a whole.
“(I know there are graphical front-ends to many of the package managers, but what if that front-end becomes unavailable).”
thats like asking what to do if add/remove programs in windows gets blown to bits. atleast most distros have a commandline “backup”
Wow. Those would be great points if they were based in fact instead of your imaginary world view..
“This doesn’t make sense either, as many of the Linux documentation (guides, how-to documents, etc) still assume that you have at least basic knowledge of the command line. This makes sense for complex tasks like recompiling a kernel, but not for simpler things like installing packages (I know there are graphical front-ends to many of the package managers, but what if that front-end becomes unavailable).”
I’m not sure what you mean by unavailable, but I can assure you that the gpl’ed software will always be around and Free to use. If you’re concerned about some sort of library conflict where it won’t run: You won’t see that happen very often. Seriously, people who run distro’s make mistakes and break packages. But generally speaking the package manager packages are watched like a hawk because they’re pretty stinkin important
. Not to mention, you like everyone else, suggest that normal people can’t use a CLI without providing any sort of evidence for the conclusion.
I don’t know who decided GUI’s are easy and CLI’s are hard but frankly he didn’t know what he was talking about. It’s pretty difficult for people to just suddenly pick up CLI’s one day, usually out of fear. But the same problem persists in GUI’s: Many people don’t realize what undo is for, and hence they fear doing actions they haven’t previously done which prevents them from fully learning programs.
You say documentation is bad, but you don’t mention what documentation is bad. You’re just falling on the old standby that hackers can’t document; but hackers aren’t the only people documenting *nix these days.
Just because you think Linux is ready for the desktop does not make you a zealout. And if it does, well than I’m proud to be a zealout.
When i buy a computer from Dell i don’t have to install an OS either. When i FOOBAR the OS on that computer i have to reinstall it, and the question is wether i’m able to do so. So when someone installs an OS for you and you use that and compare that to this situation i just described it seems fair.
I agree, the “ease of use” item is there…nearly. Most major distros don’t come with programs like mplayer pre-installed. In the IE environment, the flash plugin automatically install. I agree this is a bad thing, but in the linux world we can simply pre-install it can’t we? As for external devices like cameras and flash memory drives…most of the current generation are mountable as a removeable drive, something which can be built-in to the OS itself. Webcams and printers however are a different story. Until widespread adoption of linux (and BSD) as an OS that is deserving of driver creation by the leading external device hardware companies (Logitech, Epson, HP, Lexmark and Cannon come to mind) open-source OSes will always lag behind M$ and OSX.
Most major distros don’t come with programs like mplayer pre-installed.
Mostly due to politic reason such as software patents issues. Be glad that it failed in Europe or you would expect an uncanny amount of lawsuits.
In the IE environment, the flash plugin automatically install
Umm, no. That statement is really vague. You can install plugins for Firefox too.
As for external devices like cameras and flash memory drives…most of the current generation are mountable as a removeable drive, something which can be built-in to the OS itself.
Most removeable device works out of box in any modern distro.
Until widespread adoption of linux (and BSD) as an OS that is deserving of driver creation by the leading external device hardware companies (Logitech, Epson, HP, Lexmark and Cannon come to mind) open-source OSes will always lag behind M$ and OSX.
Printer issue is related to manufacturers themselves. Have you ever tried Turboprint?
That s
My wife uses Debian linux on a notebook (Gnome 2.10). She uses firefox (loves tabs), thunderbird (loves smart junkmail filtering for her five-odd email addresses), OpenOffice.Org (she creates presentations which she gives at conferences… she stores them on a USB key and plays them on PowerPoint), and she watches DVDs on her train trips. She also likes to play solitaire and gplanarity and Freeciv.
She’s not interested in maintaining or fiddling with the thing which is fine. I update it from time to time which is incredibly easy with Synaptic. Debian really is an install-once distro.
I have to laugh at the old arguments trotted out on how FREE Linux software is not as good as professional packages. Wow. gee, what a hard-hitting argument. Won’t home users be horribly disappointed without CMYK support. Gee, it’s not a plug-in replacement for all users in the world. Wow. What a rip-off. Wait, it’s free.
As for all those Windows games you can’t play, why not grow up and spend your time doing something useful? Do you want to tell your grandkids you used to play Doom for hours every day. Wow. Won’t they be impressed. Oh wait, you won’t be having any kids because that requires long-term sexual relationships.
These stupid arguments have been going on for years and years and years. Yawn.
Find me an app like MS Photo Story and i’ll move my girlfriend to linux too.
*******************************
You got to wonder the IQ of someone when they
use M$ (what is that), is this a new company
or operating system jargon?
When your only complaint in this world is over
an operating system, I would say you are totally
lost or lost it period.
I think the L$ should get a life and move
on or something. I use FC3 and I have no problems
with Linux. Just wish someone would grow up and
quit using the (M$) garbage and grow up!
It is a FREE country, use what you want, but
remember you cannot cram something down someeone’s
throat if they do not like it. That is the beauty
of America, if you do not like it, chunk it!
later
Chunk it?
Please, don’t insult people’s intelligence without bothering to identify yourself anonymous.
“Then why do they charge for SP2 like its a new upgrade if its just updates as you put it … I guess you just got caught in your own web of lies.”
But, they don’t…?
SP1 and SP2 are/were free…
My husband was using it and wanted me to try =)
Moulenfool doesn’t know what he’s talking about … MS charging for SP2? LMAO Someone needs to get their facts straight. Not only is it a free download, but MS will ship you an SP2 update CD for free as well if you want one (just fill out the form on the site).
BTW … you are not a credible source of information. I don’t care how highly you regard yourself — if you don’t have evidence to back up your statements, your statements are void.
“MS charging for SP2?”
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00022PTI4/qid=112428…
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00022PTRU/qid=112428…
“Someone needs to get their facts straight.”
Yes , you , but its the same since you started posting here …
“Not only is it a free download”
Where can everyone download it if they dont have a copy ? Since according to your lies its free.
“but MS will ship you an SP2 update CD for free as well if you want one (just fill out the form on the site). ”
No , you need to have a XP instal and XP serial that Microsoft dont consider illegal , note the *dont consider illegal* many people where told there version bought from Microsoft resallers where illegal versions.
“BTW … you are not a credible source of information”
No , I am. Quit providing me credibility the more you say I aint a credible source of information for you the more credibility I get. Prooving your comments as lies helps too
” if you don’t have evidence to back up your statements, your statements are void.”
What is void is your entire line of accusation and of worthless false informmation.
Microsoft never give anything for free.
– Moulinneuf
Listen up, Moulenfool …
What you showed me was Windows XP with SP2 integrated. You would be buying the full Windows XP product there.
SP2 *is* a free download, and has always been. I ordered two SP2 CD packets for free from Microsoft, without having to enter any kind of serial. Try again.
Moulenfool? This is the best you can do?
Where did I claim that SP2 wasn’t free?
You seem to have serious problems reading…
Go troll somewhere else.
I wasn’t talking to you, Gilboa. Take a look at the Moullineuf nugget — I was talking to him.
@Moulenfool:
Nice job at completely ignoring the fact that you were wrong about MS charging for SP2. I shouldn’t have expected anything less. Oh, and here’s some more real information:
Spyware/viruses/worms are not a problem as long as you have a firewall + avoid Internet Explorer.
Crashes? I haven’t had XP crash in something like 1.5 years, and even then it was Creative’s fault. All that it requires is decent hardware with decent drivers. That PC with the bad RAM that you found in the dumpster does not qualify as decent hardware.
Get a clue.
My understanding is that SP2 has a different key hash and so you generally need an SP2 key to do SP2 installs (without either rolling your own installer or installing SP1 first and doing an update).
It’s not that Microsoft wants to charge people again as much as it is they want to try to curb the use of pirated copies a little bit.
“I wasn’t talking to you”
Actually you where , its an open forum where everyone can participate , another concept you have a problem with.
“Take a look at the Moullineuf nugget”
Still having trouble with copy paste I see , and the personnal insult of a nugget , I am tempted to say you work in a chicken restaurant , but I dont whant to insult the restaurant people by implying you work there.
“Nice job at completely ignoring the fact that you were wrong about MS charging for SP2”
Delusionnal and fabulator too , follow the two Amazon link …
“I shouldn’t have expected anything less.”
Off course everyone who say and proove your a liar and worthless is somekind of sub human compared to you. Thats not really how it work but then you live in your own particular bubble.
“Spyware/viruses/worms are not a problem as long as you have a firewall + avoid Internet Explorer.”
Explain these then ( I know for you they dont exist ) :
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/17/HNwin2000wormvariants_1.h…
http://news.google.ca/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn&ncl=