Many Linux users have experience with Wine, the application compatibility layer which allows some Windows programs to run on UNIX-like machines. During Ubuntu’s Open Week event, Mark Shuttleworth was asked about Wine, and how important he believes it is for the success of Ubuntu.
More specifically, the question was: what is more important to Ubuntu’s success, Wine, native ports of Windows applications, or both? Shuttleworth replied:
They both play an important role, but fundamentally, the Free software ecosystem needs to thrive on its own rules. It is *different* to the proprietary software universe. We need to make a success of our own platform on our own terms. If Linux is just another way to run Windows apps, we can’t win – os/2 tried that.
While Wine might play a role in some user’s lives, I must admit that I personally never felt compelled to use it. Linux has its own set of applications that work just fine, with lots of choices and different approaches to the same task.
However, there are cases where users might rely on specific Windows applications, and there Wine could be the answer. However, if I actually relied on a specific application – like Photoshop for instance – I simply don’t think Wine is the optimal solution. I’d say that if you rely on Photoshop, it makes more business sense to use it on its native platform. This ensures greater stability when it comes to your important data. At the very least, you could virtualise Windows if your machine can handle the performance aspect of it.
Games are another area where Wine is big, but there as well I ask myself: why? If you are into PC gaming, you are probably interested in performance and stability, and again, games will deliver these two things better on the platform they were written for.
I’ve never seen Wine as anything else than a toy, but that’s just my silly opinion. I want to ask you: what do you use Wine for? What are your experiences with it? Is Wine reliable enough to, well, rely on?
All three of those games work quite well.
I’d consider it reliable enough to rely on. If the programs you want to use are rated Platinum or Gold, then you can expect performance to be just as good as in Windows. When it comes to OpenGL games, I actually see a small performance increase for some reason…
OK, probably not a question you can answer but encase someone else out there suffers the same Game nastalga I do:
Has anyone run Janes Longbow2 flightsim under Wine?
This is the one game I’d track down, buy the source for and hire a developer to port to modern hardware (remove the 128 meg RAM limitation an such). Not having that kind of spending cash, I’m limited to trying to rebuild a Win95/98 erra machine to run it on, assuming my old Voodoo2 board hasn’t corroded beyond use over the years. (The WinXP hacks where not successful for me).
Anyhow, It’s an OpenGL native game and a chopper flight sim I’ve never found a replacement for.
I found the XP hacks to be worthless, but…are you ready for this? The game ran just fine in Vista. Go figure. I can’t even remember if I ever had to set any compatibility mode or not. I had installed it hoping I could get it running following the XP setup, but I gave it a try right after install and it ran just perfect.
I made a nice mess of my Gaming boot trying every muckity thing I could find including the Nvidia OpenGL wrapper and ram limiting settings at boot.
It loaded and the main menu got me into “Instant Action” to test the flight engine but it consistantly hangs when exiting the flight engine. It’s a one way trip but after years, it was worth it just to see the opening sequence and see that 3D cockpit view again.
I also noticed it was taking some hits from the higher clockspeeds. Everything moved like I had time compression on.
I think it’s worth testing against the Win7 RC if you had it running on Vista. How the heck did it get around the RAM limitation I wonder. LB2.exe explodes as soon as it detects more than 128 meg.
If only Janes had got LB3 too market before 2001. I was hoping to see a Comanche added to the three chopper lineup.
I do not remember for the life of me doing anything in regards to the memory limit. I do however remember downloading and installing dgVoodoo wrapper, and setting the game to XP Sp2 mode. If you have problems check out simhq.com forum’s, I know they have a lot of posts on Longbow there.
I don’t think I stumbled on that site. Of the one’s I did find, the best was a site dedicated to getting LB2 working; some guy’s personal Howto posted for public consumption.
– boot through .ini or reg to limit detected ram to 128 meg (think it was a win.ini).
– install Nvidia OpenGL wrapper
– run game in compatability mode
The site also had some after install stuff like tuning the graphics display and such but I couldn’t get it stable enough to continue. I’ll be into the simhq forums tonight though. Cheers.
The only time I messed with Wine was probably ’97 or ’98. It was to run the Rhino3d program my Red Hat box. It installed easily and ran quite well.
Of course, Rhino hadn’t yet been using OpenGL, so I don’t know if that would have worked. It wasn’t quite as stable as when running it on ’95 or NT4, but Linux was my new toy at the time, as was 3D modeling, so from that perspective they were perfectly matched.
I still run Windows on my main desktop, but I’m not really attached to any specific apps, and most are easily replaceable, so I wouldn’t have much need for Wine. If I had a Linux desk and wanted to play some games, I’d just dual-boot windows for that.
I think the main usefulness of Wine is porting Windows apps to Linux. I’m trying to think of an app that was ported in such a way that had some measure of success, but I’m drawing a blank. Corel used Wine to port their desktop software, but they didn’t have much success with those products.
Picasa, Google Earth.
It is true that Picasa uses Wine, but Google Earth uses Qt, doesn’t it?
Yep, guess I’m mistaken.
Yes it does. God, why do people keep forgetting that?
Either GE’s performance is really bad, or Wine is much snappier than most of people think.
Or it could be that fugly Win theme in statically linked Qt.
Anyway, it’s still a very much native app.
picasa for linux _sucked_ last time i used it
In general, if you can identify a suitable application which is native to Linux, and even better one which is native to the Linux desktop you are using, then your experience will be much better.
http://www.digikam.org/drupal/about/overview
http://www.digikam.org/drupal/about/features9x
http://www.digikam.org/node/326
http://www.flickr.com/photos/digikam/2606908095/sizes/o/
( http://www.kipi-plugins.org/drupal/ http://www.kipi-plugins.org/drupal/node/14 )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiKam
Edited 2009-05-06 04:02 UTC
“picasa … _sucked_ last time i used it”
Hehe.. sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Picasa is pretty but Acdsee classic still blows it away for managing images. Other’s like Picasa and that’s fine but it doesn’t let me manage the file naming and directory structure unless it’s been changed recently.
But yes, Picasa bundles or installs Wine as a dependency; uncompress the tar.gz, run picasa.sh and the GUI app is up.
I had Corel Wordperfect Suite, Corel Graphics Suite and Corel Linux OS. The problem with the two pieces of software that used wine was their insistence of using something that was heavily in alpha state. If they really wanted to bring their software to Linux they could have easily obtained licensed a copy of Mainsoft ( http://mainsoft.com/products/mainwin.aspx ) which Microsoft themselves used to port IE and Outlook Express to Solaris SPARC (the pricing is a little steep but I’m sure Mainsoft would have been happy to negotiate).
I wouldn’t compare the wine of today to the state it was in 9 years ago – the two are completely different beasts.
My understanding is that Cedega is based on Wine though it’s commercial success in supporting Windows games may be somewhat subjective.
What has Cedega have to do with the discussion? Do you even known what Mainsoft actually is? you do realise that Mainsoft is based on code which they have licensed from Microsoft themselves – so it isn’t a set of libraries created through reverse engineering but instead an a recreation of parts of win32 on UNIX based upon the actual Windows code itself.
Edited 2009-05-06 19:47 UTC
More specifically, I just need a mail client that can sync with MS Exchange (natively – not via WebDAV), with working calendar, access to shared folders, address book etc. Need to be able to create/accept meeting appointments.
Evolution is *not* there yet. Outlook on wine (via crossover linux) is far more stable than Evolution in my experience. And Evolution does not yet integrate to Exchange fully. And the fonts in Evolution are ugly (looks fine to me, but looks crap to everyone else using Outlook).
Thunderbird is a great mail client – better than Evolution or Outlook. And I can add the calendar, but the whole thing is still not integrated enough.
I don’t wish to sound link I’m complaining about either product – it’s just that I’m the only person using a Linux desktop full-time in an organisation of more than 1000 people. If I can’t make my OS of choice cooperate in this hostile environment then my Boss will simply force me to use Windows.
Kontact should work with Exchange for email and calendars.
http://kontact.kde.org/groupwareservers.php
As you might have imagined, Exchange is the only groupware server that doesn’t work fully with all groups. Still, Kontact is at least part-way to fixing it.
How is Evolution? I thought it’s primary goal was Outlook for *nix. It’ll lack the advanced Exchange features but should provide basic access.
I also thought Exchange supported pop3 which would do mail but you loose the rest of the PIM functions.
(edit): I should add that a planned side project is to cover all my work functions with a Mandriva or Debian workstation. Outlook functions are one of the things I expect to have some difficulty with beyond basic mail access.
Edited 2009-05-06 16:45 UTC
Yes exchange does support POP3 but it’s not enabled by default, or at least it wasn’t the last time I set it up. With some IT departments you’re lucky if they even know what you’re talking about when you ask for POP3, and others know but basically give you the finger and tell you to either fit into their environment with your client or use Outlook. I’m not sure how Evolution’s exchange support is now, as I don’t need to interact with Exchange now, but I was under the impression that it was a main focus of version 2.24 and 2.26 to vastly improve its Exchange compatibility.
Of you get blank looks from your IT department at the mention of pop3, I think your problems run deeper than connecting to the mail server.
I can see Exchange admins not wanting to open pop3s as it means another listening port and an SSL certificate. But to not know what what it is even; that’s just scary.
(Sidenote; I noticed that the original poster had tried Evolution but not until after I’d already posted my question. serves me right for reading too fast.)
You’ll get no argument from me about bad IT departments… too bad they do exist in a lot of companies. Sometimes the extent of the admins’ knowledge is how to get exchange and IIS set up, but if anything goes wrong they’re completely useless. Sad but true, though how they get past the hiring process is beyond me. Connections, I suppose.
Take a look at evolution-mapi. It’s a plugin for Evolution to do exactly what you are looking for.
At one point in time (back in 2005) I had just about everything working with Evolution+Exchange, but it was rather unstable.
With Evolution 2.26 (latest version) we have MAPI support and import from PST.
http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.26/#rnusers.evolution
I love to use Linux because of its speed, security, and reliability. I prefer it to Windows because of those reasons, and I avoid using it whenever possible. Before the PC game Spore came out, I was drooling in anticipation. When it finally did, I found a modification of Wine that let me play Spore on Linux. When I wanted to try out WoW(which I found quite boring), I ran it through Wine. Every time there has been a PC game I wanted, Wine was able to run it, granted, not always with ease, but enough tweaking always got the job done. Without Wine I would have to use an OS I quite dislike, and I think that lack of native applications would be a damn weak reason.
Spore and WoW are your top choice for gaming?
You don’t get out much.
Ever hear of Bioshock, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Fallout 3, Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, F.E.A.R., GriD, etc. etc. etc.
Linux. Is. For. Servers.
Spore and WoW are your top choice for gaming?
You don’t get out much.
Ever hear of Bioshock, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Fallout 3, Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, F.E.A.R., GriD, etc. etc. etc.
Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s good nor that it suits everyone’s taste
Most of those games you mentioned are FPS games and I personally know a whole slew of people who don’t like such.
Linux. Is. For. Servers.
That’s something I wish would change. There just are almost no good native games for Linux, except for FPS deathmatch games (it seems no one ever bothers to try to create games with a plot, they just want to go the easy route), and the perfomance and stability of games ran under Wine or similar is subpar. *sigh*
I think the reason we don’t see many games for Linux is that good games take a lot of effort and time to make–I’m talking years, not months. The amount of sheer effort and work that goes into even a modern FPS game, let alone a modern RPG or strategy game, would boggle the mind of anyone who tried to do it single-handed. You not only need to program the game and possibly the game engine as well, but design the levels, the characters, any other artwork… create the sounds if any, among other things and put that all together. That can easily take several years… and I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to release all that work for free and further, for targeting the widest market.
Personally, I’m not much into PC gaming anymore. I say leave that to the gaming consoles as they’re designed for it and have SDKs that are made entirely for that purpose and dwarf anything similar on any PC operating system, but hey that’s just my opinion.
Neither can I, but releasing a game for Linux has nothing to do with whether you release it for free or not.
Targeting the widest market is spot on, though (but still the widest market is all the market: cross-platform development).
Except there is obviously zero payoff for most software to target cross-platform development, otherwise it would happen. There is no grand conspiracy as some nutjobs care to believe, just common sense operations. If I switched our business model to software development, I would never authorize targeting any OS unless there was a guaranteed benefit that would far outweigh risk and costs. If you think the cause of the recent financial crisis is due to irresponsible risk, then certainly targeting an OS with 1% market share of users that generally are not willing to pay for anything in the first place is down right insanity.
Any proof of that?
Considering the amount of Windows users that have the habit of not paying for the OS, do you really think that the OS price is really the reason why people switch?.
How about this: it’s a 1% of users that generally are not willing to pirate software.
Regarding risks and costs it’s obviously up to the devs to evaluate that and decide. Some might see it worth while others wont.
Companies licensing engines that are deeply entrenched in windows only technologies are probably less likely to consider porting.
On the other hand one would thing that it would only be big companies who could afford the risk of targeting other operating systems, yet there are small companies like introversion software releasing cross-platform games.
The work of Ryan Gordon goes to show that, while it might be a PITA, porting is doable in a reasonable time frame without any huge waste of resources.
Any proof of that? Are you serious?
Um, yah. Sure, most Linux users I know readily shell out money for their applications. Not.
Conversely, most Windows users I know (over the age of 16) will readily pay for software that works.
Enjoy your alternate reality.
Ah ok, most users you know… that proves everything XD
Well, there was good games that were ported to Linux, the problem is no one wanted to buy them. Ever hear of Loki? They went out of business due to very few people buying the games. When it comes to Linux, there is too much of the “Free”, as in beer, attitude. There are too many Linux users who are not willing to pay for software at all, though the same ones will say there are no games for Linux. With the market share starting to grow, is it time again for a Linux game company? Maybe, though I would think anyone would be hesitant having the proof that porting to Linux does not pay.
I was under the impression that they went down the drain due to mismanagement, although sure sales were probably anything but spectacular.
Then again how much people, worldwide, were buying games online back then? I sure didn’t even knew they existed until they were already gone.
No idea on the numbers for how many people would have purchased games online back then. I have purchased most software online since about 2000, and Loki didn’t close until 2002. It could also just be that they were before their time.
Even though you’re most likely trolling.
I’ll bite.
Beyond being used to writing code and being used to run a large number of active VMs, my current workstation has the following games installed. (All legally bought, BTW)
Native:
– Egosoft/LGP X3:R.
– Egosoft/LGP X2.
– Enemy Territory – Quake Wars.
– Doom3.
– Quake4.
– A number of OSS games.
Wine:
– TF2
– HL2
– TFC/HL1
– Red Orchestra Ostfront 44.
– Worms 3D.
– Brother’s in Arms EIB and Hill 30.
Honestly, the only thing missing from this list is a native port of Egosoft’s X3:TC (LGP?) and it would have been nice if Epic would have solved the legal problems that prevent it from releasing the UT3/Linux port, but beyond that – I’m pretty satisfied.
– Gilboa
Even though you’re proving my point, I’ll bite.
Other than Quake Wars … please revise your list with a game that 1.) doesn’t suck or 2.) came out in recent memory or 3.) is wildly popular.
Edited 2009-05-07 14:39 UTC
Thank you, oh wise one, for making it all clear now.
I should have known that a computer can only be used to one of two things:
1. Play games that you consider worth-while.
2. Server.
Being a mere unenlightened simpleton that I am, I once thought that a computer (even if it doesn’t run Windows [!!!]) can be used to browse the Internet, view multimedia content, do office work, develop software, create multimedia and 3D content and yes, play games that you do not like.
But luckily for me, I had you to open my eyes.
… Sigh.
– Gilboa
I run Dawn of War: SoulStorm on my system using WINE — and it even works perfectly, with good performance and decent graphics. That came out in recent memory, and doesn’t suck.
Linux is not only for servers; “Linux is primarily for technical people, and primarily for productive work” would have been a more defensible statement.
About usability…well, all the apps I use are cross-platform, except for my games, and with cross-platform apps I just don’t have any need for Wine.
About reliability…Umm. As much as I admire what they have done I’ve never had Wine run too stably. Either it’s random crashes, or poor performance, or that the app/game just doesn’t even start. Those ones in the Gold and Platinum list should work just the same as in Windows, but I haven’t tried them myself.
EDIT: Apparently, I have tried one app in the Gold list; WoW. And I must say that it sucked big time. Crashes, graphical errors and what not.
Edited 2009-05-05 22:39 UTC
I have made a habit of testing my point of sale software at work under wine when I install a new distro….it is now, maybe (need to test), fully running under wine.
If so, it probably rocks anything currently in the open source world and is reasonably priced w. great developers too.
And, it is the only truly critical app we need here. As it is I run from whatever I have available on a terminal session (xp) anyways, but I now have the option of just running linux….maybe serving up the windows app through an x server….though that is way out of my depth.
That is Wine’s strength, allowing linux to make the “last mile” on desktops that otherwise would be windows.
You could go Citrix or a similar App virtualization host. You’d have to see if low cost workstations justify the high cost of a central app server but it may be an option. There are some other app hosting packages available out there also.
Linux is “not there yet” in some fronts
-Design (gimp has barely improved in 10 years)
-Audio (Ardour is good for audio, but no midi support and nothing near VST quality)
-3D (blender is actually the only of the important multimedia apps actually going somewhere)
Your third point is very out of date. Maya, Softimage both run on Linux natively, it’s a known fact that film studios use Linux workstations for their CG.
Lord of The Rings trilogy CG being one as a example which used Linux workstations.
Edited 2009-05-05 23:10 UTC
An do not forget Maya is not the only one!
You also can use Softimage (just purchased by Autodesk – the same supplier as Maya): http://www.softimage.com/ .
And do not forget Houdini: http://www.sidefx.com/ .
Both programs have a native Linux version. Softimage is a bit critical as what distro you could use (Centos 5.2 works great, but OpenSUSE with some tweaks works also), and Houdini works on all distro’s I tried so far. Tip: Houdini has a fully working demo version. The only limitation is a low resolution and small watermark rendering. There is also a $99 version that has no watermarks and higer resolution. Very affordable…
Crap.. Autodesk bought Maya? I hope they don’t go the same way as AutoCAD’s single platform support.
Well – Maya was bought a few years ago. In the mean time Maya got some upgrades and is now at version “2009”. It is still available for OSX and Linux, so I think Autodesk just wanted Maya to be able to serve (penetrate?) more platforms.
At this moment signs are Softimage will also stay available for OsX and Linux.
I allways believed Autodesk would loved to be able to put 3dxMax on the Mac (and Linux/UNIX), but was withhold because the program was too tightly depending on MW-Windows API’s (and more) that a complete (and very expensive) rewrite was not doable. Purchasing Maya give them the opportunity to reach that Multi-OS goal (although not for 3dsMax).
The tried AutoCAD cross platform also didn’t they? I seem to remember hearing that there was a native build of it but management decided to scrap it and only continue the Windows CAD builds.
Maybe it was something like Adobe where they offered a native build at the same exorbitant price though it didn’t justify the cost difference between it and other raster editors at that time.
Sad, the CAD could benefit greatly from a more efficient platform. Why limit it to only using the back end *nix cluster for rendering..
Hmmm – maybe that’s the reason they have to buy Maya (and Softimage)? Maybe they tried, but where not really able to build something reliable for another platform? Maybe they “lost” some developers, and the remaining crew was not up to par for the “other-OS” task?
Just guessing. I really don’t know…
I think as Linux is used by some big corporations that also use Maya, Autosdesk does not want to upset this big clients. Money is speaking here (I also guess). So I think Maya (and Softimage XSI) will be multi-platform for the foreseeable future. Their big customers are demanding it…
Yeah, multimedia on Linux sucks big time. I installed Windows just to get Movie Maker. I have tried a number of video editing software on Linux but, at least to me, it’s not very user friendly.
Gimp does the work for me as a photographer when I only have to do some color channel changes, or adjust contrast or lightness. But their interface is a pain for me. I want ONE window.
But I hope that the major distros will eventually step in and help out on developing some stuff to make multimedia on Linux as awesome as Windows / Mac.
I was going to mod you up, but I can’t for the life of me tell if that’s sarcasm of the best kind, or you actually hold up windows movie maker as a great piece of multimedia software.
Windows Movie maker is ABSOLUTELY NOT a good piece of software, and that was kinda my point. I decided to use it for two reasons: there’s nothing even close to that in my Ubuntu repositories, and two: I get it without hassles (unlike Premier or something like that).
I have tried a few video editing application under Linux and they just don’t cut it. They are very hard to use and I don’t “get them”. It is hard to work in them.
Windows Movie player is not as good as, for example, Adobe Premier but it works.
Creating this movie only took a few minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLg3Y5aoyj0
I just wanted to cut a very long scene (cut away the parts where I die), add some text on each kill, add a background song, and have text before and after the clip. That’s it. In Windows Movie Maker you don’t need to “learn” it, it is sooo simple.
When I try stuff like Kino, Pitivi or Avidemux I can’t get the job done for two reasons: either it’s too complex and the interface sucks, or they can’t read my files.
Sorry, but I wished it was sarcasm. I promise you that some day it will be, though. I have total faith in Linux and it’s progress. I remember just a couple of years ago when I had problems with most drivers and almost all configuration was done in the console. Give it a few years and we’ll have everything regarding multimedia too!
Good night,
Sound like a flamebait but I bite. Using only pitivi, the interface is intuitive enough to use with drag-nn-drop and separating contents (audio/video). Failing to mention what kind of files are used just does not cut.
Edited 2009-05-06 06:49 UTC
Then try Kdenlive. Seems to be quite user-friendly.
http://www.kdenlive.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kdenlive
http://www.kdenlive.org/tutorial
http://www.koffice.org/releases/2.0rc1-release.php
http://dot.kde.org/2009/02/09/krita-20-host-new-features
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krita
(Krita 2.0, for KDE4, is still in RC stage).
Kdenlive is not as good as Adobe Premier.
Krita is not as good as Photoshop (not even as good as GIMP IMHO).
There are TONS of media applications for Linux. But none of them are good enough for me, right now.
That may or may not be the case, but the Linux applications mentioned in this thread actually DO answer all of the criticisms you have so far voiced in this thread. Your criticism of Linux desktop applications is out of date.
That very much makes it sound like you are just trying to come up with criticism of Linux applications for the sake of trying to be critical and negative.
For all of the use cases that you actually mentioned, Linux applications have an answer.
No, I actually tried to be very clear on that one.
Two things.
First: the reason why I did not use those programs on Linux for those very small tasks (nothing really complicated) was because I just can’t get a hang around the applications. I don’t find them easy to use. Highly subjective, a very personal opinion. (also, if you would read my post further down you would know that I don’t mix Qt apps in a Gnome environment, so I am more interested in GTK-based applications).
However, my other point was that for more complex tasks nothing still beats the applications from Adobe.
And why would I try to be negative when I do my absolutely, very best to point out that I have total faith in that it will be fixed in a near future. It’s not like I am saying that Linux sucks and it cannot be fixed. I guess this is the downside of textual conversations.
Edited 2009-05-06 04:33 UTC
Very strange.
Mixing Qt apps in a Gnome environment may not work very well, I don’t really know, but mixing GTK-based applications in a KDE4 environment works just fine. I posted an illustration of this on this thread earlier.
As for ease of use … didn’t you just say that you don’t run Qt-based apps? Well in that case, how would you even know if you find these best-of-breed KDE4 apps easy to use or not?
You haven’t yet been able to point out exactly why you say that (the feature lists of digikam and kdenlive are quite decent after all, and both applications are easily as easy to use as any others in the same field) … but I’ll take you at your word. I’ll grant you that you think that the applications from Adobe are better.
For 99% of the populace, the best-of-breed Linux applications are entirely good enough. More than good enough.
http://www.digikam.org/drupal/node/327
http://www.digikam.org/drupal/node/328
http://www.digikam.org/drupal/node/325
http://www.kdenlive.org/main-window
If you want to spend a fortune on Adobe applications, and force yourself to put up with a Windows environment on which to use them, then it is your money and your waste of resources so go right ahead.
I still don’t see the point in your trying to put off the 99% of people, for whom the best-of-breed Linux applications are perfectly fine, with made up and out-of-date criticisms of Linux desktop applications however.
Unless you have another agenda.
Edited 2009-05-06 05:17 UTC
Oh, of course. If you dare to criticize the all mighty Linux desktop from a point of view that is not acceptable to someone else, you have an agenda. How silly of me to forget. Working overtime on your conspiracies there, Lemur 2?
Everyone has a right to criticize and, even when you present your side and they still do not agree, they have a right to hold that opinion. Ah well… just know, attitudes like yours do more to drive interested parties away from foss than a lot of other factors.
Seriously, are you against free speech or allowing others to hold opinions? If not, you might want to tone down your accusations… just a friendly hint, but the way you often comport yourself, whether you mean to or not, comes across as arrogant, condescending, and overzealous. Relax,… not everyone will agree with you, nor should they. We’re not clones, you know.
Now, as for Wine itself… I’m one of those who doesn’t really see much point. Sure, you can run that occasional Windows app if the app works, but why? Why make Linux or any other os simply another platform to run Windows applications? I’m of the opinion–and I’ll stress that this is just an opinion–that all the time spend in developing Wine could have been better spent developing well thought out, native applications instead of providing a way to run Windows programs… It just doesn’t really make sense to me. The foss desktop will never be here if everyone’s solution ends up being Wine… if that happens, we all might just as well start developing and using reactos and have done with it.
Of course they have a right to hold that opinion.
It is equally my right to point out to everyone else that for 99% of people, that opinion would be overly fastidious. I would hate to hold back from pointing out that Linux had perfectly functional, perfectly usable (for 99% of people), decent, free, malware-and-adware-free applications, and through my silence people went out and un-necessarily spent hundreds of dollars to buy Adobe products.
Trying to help people by letting them know that FOSS applications are free, readily available to them, and very functional and eminently suitable for nearly all users is going to drive them away?
On what planet?
Accusation?
“Unless you have another agenda.” is an accusation? Since when?
“arrogant, condescending, and overzealous” … now THAT is an accusation.
I wouldn’t post here and put up with this kind of drivel from the likes of you if my purpose was to be liked and have everyone agree with me. That is not MY agenda.
My agenda is to let people know that they DO have a choice, they DON’T have to un-necessarily spend a fortune on Windows and programs for Windows, that there are fully functional alternatives, and they don’t have to resort to Wine. There is a vast array of great software to be had for no cost to people, all they need to do is to pay no heed to the voices trying endlessly to rip them off and force them into buying expensive proprietary exploitationware.
Edited 2009-05-06 07:37 UTC
Perhaps I should have used the word “implication” rather than “accusation.” If you don’t remember, the last line of the comment I quoted basically implied that the OP might have an agenda. That’s a pretty clear implication, I suggest you go back and read your own comment.
Pointing out foss is great, the problem with what you do is that when someone dares to say they don’t find a free software program adequate, you bring out the implications against them. I’m honestly beginning to wonder if you remember writing half of the things you write. On one hand you typically make valid points–whether someone else agrees or not isn’t an issue–and then on the other hand you act as though anyone who doesn’t use foss exclusively, who dares to find a proprietary program better, is some kind of unwashed heathen needing enlightenment or something. That is what I object to, and that is where you come off arrogant, condescending, and overzealous, and will drive folks away. Believe it or not, many find that insulting to their intelligence, and will refuse to have anything to do with people like that. You honestly make most of the Mac zealots look like a bunch of calm, collected people.
Still… if you don’t get it by now, you never will. You’re obviously intelligent, just don’t take it personally every time someone doesn’t find one of your ideas to their liking (note: implications count as taking it personally).
Oh, and by the way, you’ve now decided to insult me as well… “from the likes of you?” Pathetic, now I disagree with your zealotry and I get insulted. Well, I feel the same way, buddy… I wouldn’t put up with the likes of you if my purpose here was to be liked. I was actually going to let this pass… until I saw that line now directed at me, personally. What’d I say about taking it personal? Hint hint, there.
Your entire rant is an unfounded personal attack towards myself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Classic case.
PS: despite whatever you may think, it would still be morally remiss of me if I knew for a fact that there is copious decent freedom software that was available to all and which would perfectly satisfy the needs of 99% of people, and I did not tell people all about it in a context where others were trying to pretend that they somehow needed to run (and therefore buy) expensive software proprietary instead.
Edited 2009-05-06 08:53 UTC
The “hidden agenda” was a small attack, but nothing compared with what was use in retaliation.
I will second that linux media apps are good enough for general use. AVIDemux has done me just fine for my video editing needs, which are basic. Gimp is a great bitmap editor. Inkscape is a great vector editor. AudioCity has fulfilled my audio editing needs. Wings3D and Blender seam to have no shortage of 3D media fans but I have not used either.
Unless you are working professionally, I would very much doubt Adobe apps are worth the money. Even if you are working professionally, check out the Linux apps, you may well find many meet your needs for free.
Yeah, but it IS good enough for 99,99% of the users…
I mean – how many users you know that can afford Photoshop AND Premiere, and really absolutely need them too?
I did do some work as troubleshooter in a few large Windows/Unix/Linux environments, but only very few users actually have to use Photoshop. Even a smaller group ever needed to use Premiere. Absolutely nobody I knew used both. And I am speaking about a VERY large corporate environment…
So – although you have a point, the exceptionally small user base you represent makes that point very personal and not that big in the broader picture…
Most people I know don’t buy them. They get them from TPB. But then I live in Sweden where piracy is really big. I don’t know if this is true for other countries but the only people I know that pay for Photoshop are schools.
I do know a lot of people that would probably be able to use Krita or GIMP for what they do with Photoshop, that’s true. Although I doubt it is 99,9% but it’s the majority.
Still, I would love to see Linux become king on multimedia. Either by Adobe going multiplatform or some Linux application that do a better job than Adobe.
Other than games what most people that I talk to miss on Linux are the products from Adobe. And the features they use that GIMP or Krita doesn’t have (correct me here) are stuff like those really easy tools for emboss, shadow, etc (don’t know what it’s called but last time I used it you accessed it by right-clicking on the layers). Another great feature is the ability to merge a number of photos into one and Photoshop will distort and change the photos so that they match each other. All done by magic. Very popular for photographers I know.
I can agree with you. I think those apps have to be developed a bit more to also be noteworthy for professionals. I don’t think it will take a very long time to reach that point, given the speed of development at this moment.
Piracy is big here in the Netherlands too I am afraid.
In the past also did download a few programs from a “hrm” not-official source…
Using Linux however changed this mind-setting. You can use boatloads of software, but you do not have to be very wealthy to get all this beautiful stuff. You now can invest in better hardware, because the software costs are extremely low. And wat’s more – if you get used to be completely legal even the tiniest “not-too-legal” thing feels “uneasy”. As a result that “not-official” software is not longer downloaded here.
Anyway – as I said – GIMP, Krita, Inkscape etc. are still being improved, so I think at the end we will see better and better graphical applications. Not sure about Xara LX tough..
For photography there is also LightZone for Linux. Maybe worth to give it a look…
Yeah! I am totally with you on this one. Piracy feel very strange now after I moved to Linux full time. Downloading Photoshop just doesn’t feel right. Weird but that’s just how I feel.
And as you said, I too have complete faith in that all the open source application will get “there” soon. They are being developed very fast and they are all moving in the right direction. That, is the power of FOSS.
Same here, pirating things just doesn’t feel like it used to. I never had any qualms about it before, really but now… The only time I still have no qualms is if I’m looking to obtain a movie or tv series that is not and won’t be available for my area/region. In that case, the media industry brought it on themselves… if they’d’ve released it here I’d’ve probably bought it instead of pirating it. I don’t pirate software anymore though, and I can’t imagine going back to doing it again.
I dislike Linux but I would run it SOLELY for a stable working version of Krita 2 that can run int the “Painterly” colourset and support my Intuos4 properly. In fact, if it can do HALF of the natural media functions the developers and proponents claim it to, I would buy a copy!!
Heck, if anyone can get it to do so on any distro with the above requirements, I would love to hear it and you managed it!
Have you looked at Gimpshop. All the functions of GIMP with a Photoshop like interface from what I hear.
For multimedia; that’s mostly an issue of codecs. I believe Suse/OpenSuse include full codecs thanks to Novell. Codec packs are available for purchase to cover the patent license fees. LinDVD, from the makers of WinDVD, covers your movie watching needs. Mandriva Powerpack includes all the multimedia love also at a reasonable price.
There are also some multimedia specific distributions which include a ton of related software but I can’t comment on how they stack up for media professionals.
Try giving Rosegarden or LMMS a shot. I’m not a composer or anything but I have heard good things about the two. Especially Rosegarden. Might fit your needs.
Linux does audio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_audio_software
http://sound.condorow.net/
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20080622143124178/Audio.html
For composition & music notation, apart from Rosegarden one can try Lilypond and Musecore
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20080626163212768/LilyPond.html
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20070819052014491/Rosegarden.html
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20080626144848130/MuseScore.html
For Midi stuff, check out LMMS, FluidSynth and LinuxSampler:
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20080406122656131/LMMS.html
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20080628142113958/FluidSynth.html
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20080626155705514/LinuxSampler.ht…
Audio-oriented Linux distributions include dyne:bolic, 64 Studio and Wolvix
http://dynebolic.org/
http://www.64studio.com/
http://wolvix.org/
Edited 2009-05-06 12:47 UTC
Named distro’s also have (apart from using the Jack sound server), wineASIO. Also you can use some VST instruments in this manner.
Take a look at this site: http://ladspavst.linuxaudio.org/
And this site: http://www.linux-vst.com/
About the sampler: http://www.linuxsampler.org/about.html
And some more info about wine ASIO: http://www.sandgreen.dk/index.php?side=linux_wineasio
Very interesting stuff….
Years ago I bought a (very cheap) music notation and playback program. I was very pleased to see it working without any problem under wine. The program is named Melody Assistant.
More information and a trial version can be found here:
http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/melody.htm
Edited 2009-05-06 13:09 UTC
Here you go … a Linux audio-oriented netbook.
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/05/indamixx-open-source-music-creati…
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/05/05/the-mobile-music-netbook-l…
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/01/indamixx-netbook-for-music-produc…
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/02/making-music-with-netbooks.html
heh, well you sure put my post to shame. Those are some quality links.
Wine is essential to the succes of Linux on the mainstream desktop. All the cross platform programs (firefox, VLC etc. etc.) and Wine make the transition easier for new users.
People use applications far more than “the operation system”, at least in the eyes of average computer users.
Changing habits that currently “work well” is very dificult, so if people can use all the application they already know well, the change is much more incrementally.
Linux has a lot positive things that Windows doesn’t (even if users only use crossplatform or wine apps). For example the centralised software updating system and the large repositories of software, that makes finding and updating software very easy.
Most windows users really don’t get all the software updating programs on Windows (Microsoft, java, adobe, apple, virus scanner etc.etc.), and just click any warnings away, leaving the system out-of-date.
Wine is currently becoming very good. A lot of programs and games are working perfectly already, they made HUGE compatibility improvements in the last year, and the speed it improves is amazing in my opinion.
Compatibility and the ease of use aren’t there yet for normal “click and run” use by average users, but they are quickly getting there.
The only reason I can ever find to use Wine is to waste some time away gambling on Pokerstars. Pokerstars doesn’t officially support Wine, but they once released a version of their client that failed to work under Wine and released an updated version a few hours later just to fix the reported problem; nice. There are still a couple of glitches in the client but none of them affect my ability to lose money.
Edited 2009-05-05 23:01 UTC
I’ve used it for years. Why would I bother to waste money on a Windows license for 3 Windows apps when I use 30 OSS applications?
Packaging Windows apps for deployment on Linux is a breeze too, as easy (or easier) than the same task in Windows.
Cause you get a license with almost every computer you buy today. Most people have a license. I got one on my laptop. Never used it, though.
I suppose that’s true.
But then, when it came home the Mobo was in one box, the GPU in another, the case in another… hehehe..
Ah, who am I kidding, I have my XP license from older machines and previous jobs along with the rest of ’em in my OS collection. Thank goodnes for virtualization rather than having to juggle OS between fewer physical machines.
Hmm…
I never buy a complete set. I always choose the components I like, so every computer in my house is just perfect … ehrmmmm.. well – for me it is 😉
By using this approach I am never been forced to buy any OS with the equipment, so I really have a free choice. This is not for everyone tough…
I am only out of luck if I want to use a laptop. Fortunately in my country there is a very active (online) second hand market with surprisingly new and cheap laptops – without any OS (or a not longer “legal” OS that can be wiped out in seconds).
I am only out of luck if I want to use a laptop. Fortunately in my country there is a very active (online) second hand market with surprisingly new and cheap laptops – without any OS (or a not longer “legal” OS that can be wiped out in seconds).
Here they’re selling barebones laptops, ie. you have to supply any drives, the processor, memory and all that, the laptop itself only consists of easy-to-open case and a motherboard. And there’s quite some selection in the motherboards, too.
Such a thing would probably suit you perfectly
You are absolutely right! Sadly I cannot find such a thing here in the Netherlands (or I don’t know about it – that’s more likely). I would sure suits my needs.. ;-).
Yeah, I do the same. But that’s for the desktop. I always get a license when I buy a laptop.
I got my laptop from Asus (well, Acer): the hardware is decently configurable, and you can choose what OS license to buy with the machines… or not to buy an OS license. I’m using Ubuntu, runing a few games through Wine, having never paid for a Windows license (well, at least not for this machine.
Even though there are a lot of good bittorrent clients for linux, I love uTorrent and it works perfectly under Wine. That and some older games that I play (Alien vs predator, the Fallen, Elite Force, Anachronox), al work perfectly
I just upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04 and to my surprise Deluge have really showed that they want to copy uTorrent. I like it cause I love uTorrent and use it on my Windows machine.
The newest additions to Deluge are great and it’s the best torrent client out there. Besides, it looks better than running uTorrent via Wine.
I avoid Wine as much as I can, just like I avoid Qt apps on Gnome and vice versa. I want my desktop to be unified (both in looks and feel).
Qt 4.5 has a GTK theme engine: http://code.google.com/p/arora/wiki/Screenshots
Yeah, which would take care of the “looks” but not the “feels”, which is at least just as important, of not more important.
What is “feels”? It puts buttons in GNOME order and replaces open/save windows, among other integration features.
Edited 2009-05-06 08:29 UTC
If you install gtk-chtheme under KDE4, it is trivial to get your GTK applications such as firefox almost indistinguishable from your KDE4 applications such as Kate.
http://ourlan.homelinux.net/qdig/?Qwd=./KDE4 desktop&Qif=firefox and kate.png&Qiv=name&Qis=M
I got sick of every version of Windows requiring new hardware and the virus scanner consuming way too many resources, so I switched to Linux to make good use of an older laptop.
Wine just allows me to run apps like Quicken that I haven’t gotten around to replacing with the FOSS equivalents… and it does a reasonable job.
I would expect the same for companies – those that want a supported platform on existing hardware, to run office or web apps… Linux might meet 95% of their needs. But all companies have in house or line of business apps that can’t be replaced immediately so Wine might be an appropriate alternative.
(It’s as much a potential solution as Windows in a VM or a terminal server… except you wouldn’t be paying MS, but perhaps you would pay CodeWeavers)
Don’t underestimate it, it even works better than Windows sometimes. I have seen that some games run faster on Wine than on Windows, and Wine will run some applications that Windows wont anymore.
WINE’s has two very important benefits: Psychological and actual compatibility.
I’ve seen it happen: It’s relatively easy to convince people to use Linux when you can just say to them: “If you don’t like the Linux apps, you can just run the Windows ones and still be immune to Windows viruses.”
It doesn’t often really matter if that statement is actually true (neither do all apps run with WINE nor does Linux have 100% immunity against online attacks), because usually normal people are just fine with the Linux native apps.
WINE also enables actual compatibility. Even if Thom does not believe it, some games and other Win apps do run better on Linux with WINE. My desktop PC has a Radeon 9200LE graphics card, but AMD doesn’t offer any Vista drivers for it, even though Half Life runs just fine with that GPU.
OTOH there is a quite good FOSS Linux driver for that GPU. Linux+WINE enabled me to play Half Life without the need to buy new hardware.
Even without that special case, I’m happy that I have WINE installed. Just like Windows sometimes breaks compatibility with new releases, old closed-source Linux apps can be a problem, too. In both cases WINE offers a solution: Just run the the app’s old Windows version under Linux. That results in the benefit of a current OS (less security risks) without the burden of running the old OS in a VM.
What I am waiting for within wine is USB support which many pieces of software, like iTunes rely on; along with many other pieces of software which make life easier for end users. With that being said, however, the bigger thing I’d like to see is the Windows user space driver kit which was made available in Windows Media Player 11.
As for wine itself; many of us like using applications from the Windows world – which is the one thing that held me back from going to an opensource desktop and choosing a Mac instead. For example, I like Microsoft Office – its one of Microsoft’s good pieces of software, I like being able to have easy to use applications iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, and so forth; all of which are lacking from the opensource desktop.
Until a crazy millionaire comes along, hires 10,000 programmers and decides to create clones of all the big ticket applications and games in the Windows world – for the opensource desktop; most people out there are going to be reliant on wine or virtualisation technology.
I was trying few times to use some Windows app through Wine, but I’ve never succeed. Even last week I tried to install Office 2007 using Wine in Ubuntu 9.04, but it failed. Before that I had tried to install something smaller, like Total Commander, and also no success. Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, Wine is more a geek toy, rather than an useful tool. I’m aware that others have installed Office 2007 using Wine, but it requires some tweaks, changing some *.dll files, etc.
Edited 2009-05-06 01:35 UTC
I’m surprised the answer was as diplomatic as it was to be honest. The question is ridiculous. The only project Wine’s success is important to IS Wine (and by fiat ReactOS as well – but my overriding point applies to that project as well). The LAST thing any Linux distribution needs to be successful is to become a platform for running Windows applications – that will accomplish nothing lasting.
I’m not dissing Wine, its great and comes in handy from time to time, but it will eventually be cursed by its own success. It’s goals may be reachable, but the expectations of its users are untenable. It will never achieve a level of compatibility with Windows that a normal Windows user will be satisfied with. Not for lack of effort, simply because Microsoft will not let it happen – the shiny new version of Office 2015 or whatever is the app of the day wont run on Wine when it is released… It will always trail behind. And if history proves accurate it will generally trail behind in YEARS.
In a nutshell, if you are a user that NEEDS Wine in order for Linux to fulfill your needs, you may as well go back to running Windows – it will almost certainly work better for you in the long run. As much as it pains me to say that – its true.
The key to Linux becoming successful is the same thing that was key in Windows becoming successful – native applications. BETTER native applications, not ripoffs. Linux developers need to start trying to write creative and original applications and stop the constant march to duplicate this or that Windows app. The APIs to do so are there – use them.
I see what you mean, however many people have already invested in software on Windows and wine seems to be a good transitioning tool.
The only Windows software I use are games (Mostly outdated ones). Ubuntu suits my needs for everything else so it makes sense to use Wine.
Windows 7 has a XP mode for business to ease the transition. XP and Vista has compatibility modes.
Mac OS X had classic mode, then Rosetta.
And Linux has Wine.
There are also other points about Linux that we have probably all read at some point about how there are different package formats and tools (RPM and Yum, DEB and apt-get). Mac OS X and Risc OS seem to have it right with dragging 1 file over.
Again it is more of a transitioning tool as native applications provide a better experience, wine has the potential to stop the “chicken and egg” cycle as developers do not want to put time into Linux due to user base size and many do not use Linux as their invested software does not run.
Wine being behind Windows is not a entirely bad thing. If it was completely up to date why not just develop for Wine?
Edited 2009-05-06 18:06 UTC
Without Wine, I would have never been able to use Linux on my office desktop. I need it for only two apps -but I needed these two apps at work.
So, Wine helped a lot.
I use wine to run applications that do not have an equivalent in linux — endnote for example. I also use wine to run ms office. This enables me to edit legacy ppt and doc files (of which i have thousands). Open office works fine with a 50K word doc but often balks with large complex ms office files (i have filed *confirmed* bugs).
Endnote has a few alternatives available in Linux.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_sof…
Some that might be of interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pybliographer
… and here is one that is a firefox extension:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zotero
These may or may not suit you … but nevertheless, they do exist, and they do qualify as an equivalent in Linux of endnote.
I’m getting a bit tired of endless baseless claims that one cannot do this or that natively on Linux. Quite a few people seem to be prepared to claim this without any basis, or with quite outdated information.
Edited 2009-05-06 05:28 UTC
You can get tired of it all you want, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the problem exists. Native equivalents aren’t always as good as the Mac or Windows app you’re trying to replace. Gimp is not as good as Photoshop. Ardour is not as good as Cubase/Sonar/Pro Tools. Evolution is nowhere near as good as Outlook or even Entourage. Kino is not as good as Premiere, FCP, or even Sony Vegas. The Visio replacements aren’t as good as Visio (I’ve tried every one of them that I could find).
Shall I go on?
Of course this is my opinion, but I bet I can find a few hundred people to agree with me.
I don’t think WINE is the answer though. It doesn’t encourage native ports to Linux, merely the developer “getting it to work” with WINE, which, IMO, is kind of half-assed.
Sorry but the software you mentioned *just does not do the things* that Endnote does. I use endnote to format references in particular journal/manuscript styles. It is possible to do this by manually using the software you mention but that defeats the purpose. (I’d rather use latex and bibtex.)
And I use zotero every day for its wonderful web snapshot/note capability but, for me, it has never worked as a bibliographic tool.
The open office bibliographic project is promising but development has been achingly slow.
_ _ _ _ _ _
I think your failure to respond to the interoperability criticism is telling. I have hundreds of legacy documents that open office either corrupts or cannot open (forms, tables, embedded images, embedded movies, proprietary ttf and ps fonts). If you want to see linux used in a professional environment, the ability to run microsoft office natively in linx is essential.
Lemur2 often advocates applications that he has never used, in fields that he has never used. He just Googles for “EndNote for Linux”, and copy/pastes whatever half-assed, barely-updated piece of software it brings up.
He’s never used EndNote, so he has no idea what people who DO use EndNote (like you, and I myself use it too) actually look for in such an application.
We actually use EndNote, so we know the alternatives he lists are not even close to EndNote’s capabilities. However, someone who hasn’t used EndNote will think his arguments and links are convincing, and will so be fooled. And that’s his goal.
Edited 2009-05-06 21:41 UTC
Thom, considering that you are always keen on calling out other people for facts to back up their opinions, I’d like to hear some facts now. What can Endnote do that the others can’t? I have used Endnote briefly and abandoned it quickly because it’s UI is a piece of crap IMO. Apart from the fact that using it with BibTex/Latex is a pain in the ass. I know several other people who have switched from Endnote to either jabref, zotero, bibus or pybliographic or referencer out of similar reasons.
Also with respect to formatting output into different formats, AFAIK bibus does it, zotero does it (they have tons of different output translators), jabref does it as well. Mind you I don’t have any experience using that feature, I’d rather chop my arm off than using MSOffice/OOffice for writing scientific publications.
J
OpenOffice.org version 3.1 has just been released today.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/OOo/31/prweb2388264.htm
There is a list of new features:
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.1/index.html
This list does not seem to include Bibliography support.
The home page for bibliography support in OpenOffice
http://bibliographic.openoffice.org/
… includes this text:
“When will this wonderful facility be available ? We have planned to get meta data support for text objects in Writer in OOo version 3.1 (due April 2009). See feature timeline. Also see a blog on plans for Writer.”
I’m not sure if it made it in or not.
In the interim, OpenOffice does allow for integration of other software.
From the page referenced above:
“We recommend you use Zotero, which has a OOo plugin to assist with citation management. Other applications are: Jabref, which can inset citations and bibliographies into an Writer document, B3 which can write bibliographic records to a Openoffice Bibliographic text database or Bibus which has good integration with OpenOffice.”
I cannot comment on which of these might best suit your needs, and how advanced the support for bibliographic referencing within OpenOffice has progressed in the new version 3.1, but it certainly at least was the aim to have it improved by now.
This link:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Bibliographic/Software_and…
may be able to provide some further help. It seems at least to be able to bring a little bit of objectivity, and less of personal vendettas, to this discussion.
Good luck.
Edited 2009-05-08 05:18 UTC
It would seem that Endnote has actually sued Zotero for “reverse engineering”. Now in order for that to make sense, then (a) Zotero would have to do what Endnote does, and (b) it would have to be a patent, not just a trade secret.
If Endnote actually has a valid (in the US) patent, then that would be a reason why open source software is not as functional. But if open source software truly is not as functional, then Endnote don’t have a case.
I have encountered hundreds of legacy documents that (later versions of) MS office either corrupts or cannot open (forms, tables, embedded images, embedded movies, proprietary ttf and ps fonts).
So? Your point?
If you want to use an Office application in a professional environment, and legacy documents are a concern to you both now and further down the track, then microsoft office is the very last thing you should be running.
http://homembit.com/2009/05/microsoft-now-attempt-to-fragment-odf.h…
Edited 2009-05-07 02:30 UTC
I have encountered something which has resulted in further thoughts on this topic of interoperability.
It is a comment in the latest news picks on Groklaw front page, which includes an extract from a new EU directive. If legacy documents produced by older versions Microsoft Office do not open correctly in other programs, and it can be shown that this is due to information about the formats being obscured and kept by Microsoft as trade secrets, then Microsoft could well be (as of quite recently) now in violation of international business law, according to new EU directive 2009/24/EC.
http://groklaw.net/
So there you go. Interesting, is it not? It certainly is directly against Microsoft’s apparent past buisness strategies.
Oh and I also use ms offic in wine to open files that colleagues send that do not open in open office. Interoperability is essential to adoption of linux on a wider scale.
What the hell is Ununtu?
-Ad
Well, to tell you the truth, *mostly* for games. And while this is pretty much hit-and-miss, there is no real substitution… I *can* run those in Windows, but
a) I actually have to have Windows installed
and
b) I’ve become so comfy using my KDE4 desktop that I prefer being in Linux and now I have to reboot everytime I want to play that game
Further yes, it does not run everything, but even a few of the things it does run make a world of difference. For example with some effort (and with Crossover Games, Cedega or PlayOnLinux: a little effort) I can play games like Prince of Persia 1, 2, 3 and PoP 2008/PC (the celshaded one) and e.g. Dreamfall, Oblivion, … .
Even if the quality of these (well, Dreamfall quality is at 100% in Linux) is suboptimal compared to Windows, you just *cannot find* comparable games like that for Linux.
Also about stability I would like to add that, some games like to ‘freeze’ my Windows PC but on Linux&Wine they do not… plus often with Wine I can opt for (force) Windowed mode when in Windows this is simply impossible.
One thing I also did recently, was to rip a DVD to hard disk so I could actually watch it in Linux (Mplayer and VLC had trouble reading the disk). Disk legally owned mind you… funny fact: if I would have just downloaded it from bittorrent site instead of purchasing, it would have saved me the hassle of doing this.
Wine is useful for productivity applications too, but if you use a whole ‘set’ of these (e.g. my work: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Html-kit, After Effects, …) they’re not likely to work (well) together and it’s easier to switch to Windows then. That said, thanks to Wine, Picasa 3.0 runs great on my Aspire One, definitely an application that is tremendously useful on this machine.
So yeah Wine is important. Not “I’m going to conquer the world with it” important, but important enough to fill a need.
Edited 2009-05-06 07:15 UTC
Just wanted to comment that for a while Crossover Office, the commercial cousin of wine, was the ONLY reliable way I could print under Linux. I’m not a geek, and I could not manage to get Linux applications to print, when there was some error.
Crossover Office with Word always printed without a hitch. Of course I found that somewhat paradoxical, but was very grateful that it worked so well.
Wow, that must have been the bad old days when Linux still used the old-style lpr printing system. Yick, I remember what a pain in the arse it was getting some printers to work with it, and was an early adopter of CUPS even when most distributions hadn’t even considered switching to it yet for that reason. I’m surprised Crossover would print, though perhaps it has support for printers on its own.
Edited 2009-05-06 07:37 UTC
Actually not that old – it was CUPS, but it didn’t work very well, for me at least. It’s different now – no problems.
Edit: AFAIK Crossover Office did use CUPS, that also was amazing for me because it worked there always, not like in other Applications.
Edited 2009-05-06 08:02 UTC
Adobe software (Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom for my girlfriend and Flex Builder for me) and some other pieces simply leave no choise for desktop computing for me – Windows only! And for my server I use FreeBSD. No Linux in my world! (:
… And the connection to the subject at hand is?
Not a lot, but regularly. I run Photoshop 7 and Artrage under wine, mostly to check out the way they handle certain features when I’m designing something for krita. I’ve tried to run Corel Paint, too, but that doesn’t work, unfortunately.
I used to use wine for my tax software, but that’s linux native, these days, in the Netherlands.
I tried to run the app we were developing at my previous workplace under wine because we did not have Windows licenses for the training course laptop and still needed to give the training. But the application (borland C++ and vcl) didn’t run…
While it is lovely to say that you can start from a clean slate and totally ignore all the applications, and more importantly components, that people are using and running today – especially when you have precious few applications to start off with – I’m afraid you simply can’t. It’s a fact of life when you’re not the main player.
It’s like saying that Microsoft Office could have got to where it is having totally ignored WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 files that people were saving twenty years ago and being unable to handle them. Errrrrr, you’re going nowhere with that.
In fact, I’m being harsh on Mark here. No one gets this it seems.
Edited 2009-05-06 09:38 UTC
There are 25,000+ packages in Ubuntu’s repositories, representing perhaps 10,000 applications.
Hardly qualifies as “a few”.
There is a lot of noise on the web, it seems to be an Internet meme, that Linux somehow lacks applications, and that there are things that you cannot do with Linux.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme
In some rare cases, this might actually be true. However, for the vast majority of use cases … what most people actually use their computers for … it isn’t true at all.
Tellingly, the people who like to try to spread this meme are almost universally unable, when challenged, to come up with a general, common use application of computing that cannot be done, and done well, natively with Linux.
As already shown on this thread, such people will often resort to egregious insults against anyone who challenges their meme.
Edited 2009-05-06 10:23 UTC
It’s because if Linux has, say, a wordprocessor, it doesn’t mean that one will be able to complete a certain real-world wordprocessing task in it (or reliably complete a set of such tasks that one can possibly encounter within one’s activity realm). “Real-world task” being a task that involves a specific common data format, feature, way or speed of doing things. When said format, feature, way, or speed constitute a de-facto standard, then people tend to say about lack of applications – they mean quality, not quantity.
Having said that, and made those claims … they are still very often stuck for a valid example of a real-world task they are unable to complete.
Furthermore, the proprietary alternative they are trying to tout very often does not, itself, support proper de jure standards, and hence in reality is even more lacking that the FOSS alternative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_jure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto_standard
A Free Market, BTW, somewhat paradoxically requires de jure standards, not de facto ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
This is because Supply and Demand only works when there are multiple alternative equally viable sources of supply.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
If you have too much caving in to and acceptance of de facto standards, you get this happening:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
Which is a very bad thing. The Free Market is the one that benefits people.
FOSS applications actually do mean quality, not support for ephemeral functions, and not lock-in.
Edited 2009-05-06 11:12 UTC
Maybe some of them cannot indeed readily express what they mean – BTW, that doesn’t mean that they lie; sometimes you really need to sit with them and see them use the thing to understand what they’re trying to convey.
I for one have no problems doing that within my specific field, which is professional technical translation. And therefore won’t use Linux for work for some years to come.
“Proper de jure standards,” even if they exist, don’t mean a thing if people en masse use something else (if you make them use these standards, that’s fine). I need to do something today in a specific format, using specific features and in a certain time frame. Either I can do that with this OSS app or I can’t; in the latter case, I don’t really care whether it is because of some proprietary format, or because the developers haven’t yet implemented this feature because nobody pays them and they do it in their free time. That’s why I talk about de-facto standards.
quality, not support for ephemeral functions, and not lock-in
Contrasting quality with “support for ephemeral functions” is very telling… That’s partly where FOSS problems are. Who are you to call functions someone needs ephemeral? They are there because there is user demand for them.
And speaking of lock-in, I prefer to be locked in within 90% of the potential opportunities that within 10% of them. It would be wonderful if there were no lock-ins whatsoever, but they will necessarily appear even without vendor’s specific intent – just as an effect of a vendor doing something new that nobody has yet replicated.
I have no desire to go into economic details (so I won’t continue this sub-thread); I’ll just point out briefly that free market doesn’t really require anything of that. Free market is unregulated market. Supply and demand work even if there is a single good from a single vendor. Monopoly isn’t “bad” per se unless it’s created somehow by the government or privately by non-economical methods like violence or threat of violence. All this is basically because of one thing:
No one is ever obliged to sell anything to anyone at a specific price.
But that is what many people don’t get, even those who think of themselves as supporters of “market economy.” Some may even agree with this exact point but then support things completely opposite to it, like regulating monopolies not created using government or private violence.
Sigh……………….
How many of them are relevant to people running Windows today? There is no way at all that you’re going to be able to list an alternative to every software application out there that people on Windows are using. That’s so stupid it isn’t even funny. How are software developers going to install their software, because they aren’t going to wait months to get it into a repository? They probably don’t want to make it publicly available in a repository either. How do you handle that? You don’t.
More developers == More software
More software == More users
Wider availability of software (i.e. installation) == Even more users
Without that, nothing. That’s what Linux and Ubuntu needs.
There are things you can’t do with Linux. Trying to believe otherwise is delusional. For starters, just look at the software available for Windows that people use in a wide variety of fields. You only end up looking like a sad loser when you start trying to rifle through Ubuntu’s repository looking for alternatives to every bit of software people can install on Windows and saying “Oh, if you just do this and don’t care about that functionality………” What about all the internal VB applications and COM components in companies that they’re not even rewriting for .Net, nevermind Linux desktops? That counts for a hell of a lot and it’s a huge opportunity to gain users in one fell swoop.
For some limited functions like e-mail, web browsing and at a push office functionality it certainly can be used, and strategically it is important that you push people towards those alternatives. However, beyond that you’re running on empty.
The important bit:
The mantra seems to be “Oh, over 80% of people use this and only less than 20% of people use all that complicated stuff. We don’t need that bloatware on our systems!” The old 80/20 rule. As Joel Spolsky wisely says though, it’s always a different 20% using different features each time. It’s why Gnome itself, and Ubuntu as a result, regardless of anything else will never get anywhere with that bone headed, delusional view of the world. It’s why ‘Lite’ word processors never get anywhere and why companies who sell software on that basis don’t stay in business for long. As soon as one person realises you haven’t got the one feature they use you’ve lost them.
Yep, and I’m afraid some people will continue in their own little world.
Edited 2009-05-06 11:09 UTC
Another wrong-headed idea about Linux.
What you do is you make your own repository. Then people who use a Linux distribution and a package manager to safely install software on their Linux systems, and who want your software, will simply add the URL to your new repository to the list of repositories they are using.
Like this one, as an example:
https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-experimental/+archive/ppa
As for “publicly available” … you do realise that repositories such as the one above have TWO lines because there are TWO repositories, one for binary packages (the deb one) and the other for source code (the deb-src one). If as a developer you don’t want to give away the source code, then don’t … this doesn’t stop you from making your own binary repository and getting your packages installed on people’s Linux systems via package managers.
Now did that misunderstanding on your part boil away most of the rest of your argument? Well yes, pretty much.
What else did you claim?
Name some, and we can discuss.
Specialist software (ie doesn’t fit my “most users” criteria) … only not available for Linux because vendors perceive a lack of a market.
There was a meme put about just recently that Linux has broken 1% market share … less “self-interested” estimates would put this at anything from three to ten times as high. There is a market.
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3818696/Linux-Des…
http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/05/linux-at-1-percent-ha-…
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7321/1.html
As soon as the generalist use market gets properly on to Linux, and the penetration expands, then the specialist software will follow.
After all, even for specialist software, it is not as if it CANNOT be done on Linux, only that it sometimes isn’t done on Linux. A simple port would fix that.
Edited 2009-05-06 11:36 UTC
Hmmmmm, no. Linux distributions are still lacking an installation system to configure and install any given piece of software. Fact is, I can still configure MySQL in a much more pain-free way in Windows on installation than I can on Linux. While repositories and package managers provide a decent avenue for software installation on one hand, they take away with another. How do you get the software installed in the first place to add a repository URL?
I also don’t see vendors creating several different packages for each distribution and different versions for each different distribution version where necessary as well as the updates for all of them. However, no one is writing applications for desktop Linux like that so we still get constant gripes about lack of functionality. No one is even packaging such apps for just Ubuntu, so that should tell you something. That’s what ultimately tells me that Ubuntu’s popularity is just fanboyism.
You don’t know Linux distributions as well as you think you do and you’ve got yourself so much on one track that you can’t see the forest for the trees.
Jesus H. Christ. That one sentence is enough to confirm to me that you’re a bit of a loony. Basically, you will then wander off on Google and find some inadequate and half-completed open source alternatives. Take a look at what is written below:
As I explained below this bone headed 80/20 thinking is blown away. It’s a different 20% each time. Yep, people might do e-mail and web browsing but as soon as they want to play a game or install some CAD or even cross-stitch software you’ve lost them. You cannot pigeon-hole users like that.
Hell, even the areas where functionality is supposed to be strong such e-mail, fall short in many, many ways. After all these years Exchange is still an impediment. As tough as that is, that’s the way it is. We still don’t have an adequate Exchange client for desktop Linux nor do we have a very simple way of migrating Exchange and Active Directory to Linux based alternatives in a few clicks, which is strategically the better option.
You know, if Ubuntu or any desktop Linux system had a decent set of development tools and libraries available and a way of packaging things up and sensibly installing them then we could have had many software vendors writing Exchange client functionality add-ons and migration tools by now. This would have been done, dusted and would have moved desktop Linux on to the point where Exchange migrations would have made it far less of a problem. As it is, we’re still talking about Exchange clients.
If you can’t write software and package it up to distribute to that market, and if you can’t get that software to your users then you don’t have a market at all.
You seem to be blissfully unaware of the issues involved in writing software and making a ‘port’. You say that as if it’s somehow a given which tells me that you don’t know what’s involved developing software. Not only are development tools important but the chances of any software vendor being able to package this up and have customers buy it in their local stores on media is zero right now.
Edited 2009-05-07 10:01 UTC
My goodness, you have got to be kidding!
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=310816
The list of repositories is simply a text file (why would you need anything more complex than that?). You add a line or two to the end of it, with any text editor. Then you type “apt-get update”. That is it.
That command will read the current list of packages from all of the repositories listed in the sources.list text file. The current list of packages and versions so obtained is compared with what you have installed. If you have a package installed at an earlier version then what is now in the corresponding repository, you can then type the following to upgrade:
apt-get upgrade
Easy peasy.
Or you can do it all with a GUI package manager, such as Synaptic, which comes as part of the base install.
http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/index.html
http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/action.html
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/linux/articles/21581.aspx
More info:
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-basico.en.html
https://launchpad.net/~voria/+archive/ppa
Look at that, a PPA for the Samsung NC10, just for Ubuntu.
I wonder if there is any open source support on Launchpad specifically for the eeepc?
https://launchpad.net/+search?field.text=eeepc
8700 pages worth of hits. I guess there is.
https://launchpad.net/
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+ppas
That is just the Ubuntu PPAs (personal repositories outside of the official Ubuntu repositories) hosted on launchpad.net. Over two thousand active repositories on the one website. All of them for just Ubuntu.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launchpad_(website)
Then there are hundreds of other websites also hosting repositories.
http://code.google.com/opensource/
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/
http://sourceforge.net/
http://savannah.gnu.org/
Others:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_software_hos…
Some feel for the size and scope of the free software movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_community
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_free_software
http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
http://www.blackducksoftware.com/development-cost-of-open-source
The total number of people worldwide working the equivalent of full time on open source is estimated at about 1.5 million.
“no one is writing applications for desktop Linux”
You have GOT to be kidding. Surely.
I think you are in serious need of a reality check.
Edited 2009-05-07 13:23 UTC
There are many people writing applications for desktop Linux; sadly many of them either are not as good as the Windows/OS X app they look to copy, or they’re perpetually 80% done.
I wish it were different, but that’s what I’ve been finding most aggravating lately with Linux. SBackup is a great example. Such an easy to use desktop backup utility, works very well…..except one major issue that makes it useless.
No, Mark is right. He shouldnt focus too much on being compatible with MS or he’ll get eaten. Wine is a nice project but Mark should really focus on his own plans and not care about Wine at all actually. He should certainly not follow MS’s plans. When you follow, you dont compete. You are only competing when you are leading. Softwares should be compatible with Linux and not the other around.
Why would he get eaten? Just ask Microsoft about all this and ask them why no one sees any need to move to Vista or even Windows 7.
Microsoft created a whole class of development libraries and applications that only run on Vista or 7 with no backporting to Windows XP. As Vista and 7 have limited market share no developers are too interested in writing those applications and with no applications users are not interested in Vista or 7. Even though they can run their current applications on Vista or 7, they run better on XP thank you very much.
Applying this to Ubuntu, it has always been the case that if you can’t run the applications that are of interest to people today or get a platform out there to the current installed base then no one is interested in you. It’s all about the applications. Mark and Ubuntu are going nowhere ignoring that fact.
I’m pretty sure DOS could never run any of the applications that was popular on home computers when it came out. Same goes for Windows.
Also, Mark isn’t saying they should ignore current applications, he’s saying Linux should be able to stand on it’s own with it’s own applications. He even acknowledges that being able to run current applications is important. The primary focus however should NOT be to just be another way of running Windows applications.
You’re just attributing things to Mark and Ubuntu that they’ve never said. Perhaps reading the actual article would be a good option for you right about now?
When the choice is between a person who has started numerous successful business ventures and one who’s only contribution is seemingly posting on a web forum I’m pretty sure who’s business acumen I have more faith in.
Because before Windows there wasn’t very much software written for ‘home computers’, they existed as islands for lots of different ‘home computers’, there was no compatibility and there wasn’t the depth of software available that there is today. Put simply, it was far easier to switch platforms. That’s why there was still an opportunity in the early 90s for OS/2 or Unix. They both flunked.
That comparison is pretty strained and a flawed way of assuming that desktop Linux and Ubuntu will be OK because of what you think happened over twenty years ago. It won’t be.
What applications? Yes he is saying they should ignore current applications because in case you hadn’t noticed, beyond web browsing, basic e-mail and basic office functionality Ubuntu has no applications people are interested in. Really. No one cares.
When you need more applications to increase your userbase, turning down a current huge application pool, and a route to getting them through Wine, is not the brightest idea in the world.
No he hasn’t because he hasn’t said how that is going to be achieved or what he even means by saying it within the context of Ubuntu. I’m sure we can all install and run Wine, but that doesn’t really mean anything.
Sorry sunshine I already have (there isn’t much to read), and there is no way of splitting hairs over this as you so desperately want to do. Regardless of how things are worded you either do or do not. Holding the middle ground doesn’t work.
Ahhhhhh, the old “Oh he’s doing it and you aren’t argument”. I always know someone is uncomfortable when they have to pull that out of the hat because they are totally unable to discuss the issues at hand. They assume that this will just explain them all away – “Oh, well, he’s doing it so he must be right!” It doesn’t.
Let’s come to a right understanding. Mark Shuttleworth made his money off the cash cow of Thawte and easy ‘tax’ money of buying ‘signed’ certificates and used that to bankroll a company in a completely different business that has no prospect of making money any time soon. While I admire Mark for going out there and doing something, the situation is what it is I’m afraid.
Edited 2009-05-07 12:14 UTC
I think you are reading a little too much into what he is saying.
He’s not disregarding what has been done to date. He’s trying to take what has been done to date and evolve it.
Wine takes a Windows app and runs it poorly on Linux. What is the point?
It is better to install a Linux ready app like Open Office then a neutered version of MS Office.
Mark has more of the Google vision of how things should work. He sees a distributed Cloud as opposed to a centralized SAN. Both at the end of the day have similar results for the user with different pros and cons.
Mark wants apps that are 100% compliant with his model as opposed to 50% compliant.
I agree with Mike’s opinion.
Sun and IBM tried to support Windows on their systems without much luck. IBM with their OS/2 – Windows compatibility layer. Sun with a on the fly translator,
which name I cannot any longer recall.
Point is, if I migrate OS to keep using the same applications then I don’t see the point in migrating in first place.
The applications have to be native, otherwise you will never get proper support from the ISV. They will keep on developing against Windows APIs, because they know WINE will be there, so why bother?
To answer your question, you might migrate to Linux because:
– The cost of the OS layer approaches zero
– The OS is more secure
– The OS runs on older/cheaper hardware
And wine lets you do that. Critically the ISV’s now only need to support wine compatibilty instead of rewriting the whole app for linux, and this is much much cheaper/faster for them to do. If wine lets you run your windows only apps on linux, why wouldn’t you migrate? Wine is therefore, and has proved to be, crucial in driving adoption of the linux desktop.
Edited 2009-05-06 10:18 UTC
Sorry but I don’t buy that.
On many business when you buy the hardware the OS is already there. If you are buying in quantities you might even get a very nice discount.
Linux might be more secure by default, but it also has vulnerabilities and you need to keep an eye open to security issues.
If a worm owns your browser, accesses your HOME and does what it pleases with the data, what is the benefit of a more secure OS? Linux is more secure but people tend to forget about scenarios such as this one.
About the old hardware. Usually it only works if you use some kind of customized distribution. My experience with more standard distributions is that their hardware requirements are also quite high nowadays.
Linux is a great OS, but for me, WINE does more harm than good.
///
The cost of the OS layer approaches zero
The OS is more secure
The OS runs on older/cheaper hardware
///
True for the geek living in his parent’s basement. Blatantly false for just about any business.
Cost approaches zero … so, you offer lifetime free OS support for your Ubuntu/Fedora/PCLinuxOS clients, huh? Nice!
The OS is more secure … security by obscurity. No thanks.
The OS runs on older/chearper hardware …. have you tried Jaunty on a Pentium III or Pentium 4 with 256 MB RAM and a 64 MB vid card? I have. Slow as hell.
Thanks for playing!
I did not comment on the cost of support.
If you go with a propriatory operating system, the OS is costing you something, whether or not its magically hidden in the cost of the hardware.
And I’m sorry, but linux is more secure, and does run on cheaper hardware.
Sounds like you’re a victim of Microsoft’s FUD campaign
Links that Linux is more secure than Windows 7 or Vista? Proof? Or are you just going off of Pwn2Own headlines?
You make a reasonable point regarding the security of the most recent Windows OS’s.
However, most of the business world is still on XP, and the choice for them is whether to buy into Vista/Win 7 or to migrate to Linux.
Edited 2009-05-06 16:01 UTC
You said “cost approaches zero” … “cost” is more than just the price of the software, dimwit.
I’d shudder if you were a part of any real-life IT department.
From this, I take it that you understand that Linux, for which you only need to pay support, is cheaper than Windows, for which you must also pay a license fee.
Thus, to use your semantics, OS “cost” is cheaper for Linux, which was the thrust of my original point.
I use Wine for proprietary HW configuration programs (such as GSM gateways), I use it to run UltraVNC client (because of some features normal VNC client does not have, esp. if talking to UltraVNC server — like file transfer or reverse connection).
I saw a friend using it to play music using Foobar.
And we have a customer, who rents an application (of course legally) over the internet and they thought, that paying Windows server license, Windows CAL and Terminal Server License simply does not fit the budget, so they invested in testing the application and they got a working solution, that even handles more connections per machine and costs fraction of the price without any noticable penalty to the end user. I must say at this point, that this needed a bit of tuning, esp. of VNC Server, which had some problem working with Wine (related to bitmaps). If you see a problem with icons not showing for many users, try using Fedora’s patched Xvnc.
And actually I think it’s pretty stable these days, never had any single problem with it.
I believe this project is great and certainly has place in the world. And I’m not opposing the idea, that we should focus on open applications and yes, running Photoshop in Wine is not cool anymore. If you
care, try Gimp, if you are a pro, try Pixel (http://www.kanzelsberger.com/).
And nor will it for years. Open-source initiatives are at least ten years away from a useable speech recognition product.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking runs faster and more accurately on Linux, through Wine, than it does on Windows, when it is doing it’s core competency — dictating continuous text into Notepad or the equivalent.
What does this mean, potentially? It means that court systems can get cheaper and more reliable transcription. It means that students have a more productive time studying. It means that historical societies can transcribe ancient texts (that’s what I do, and I do it through wine). It means that the disabled have a voice.
Mark Shuttlesworth has missed (1) the only application that is a critical necessity for all of society; (2) some applications work faster and better in linux/wine than in Windows.
Open-source speech recognition for Linux is not market-ready:
http://freespeech.sourceforge.net/FreeSpeech/html/
http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/html/cmusphinx.php
http://www.isip.piconepress.com/projects/speech/index.html
http://julius.sourceforge.jp/en_index.php
http://julius.sourceforge.jp/en_index.php?q=index-en.html#feature
http://htk.eng.cam.ac.uk/
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-accessibility&m=120070568122006&w=2
Work continues:
http://www.voxforge.org/
and some of it has reached alpha release:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=775690
so it isn’t 10 years away, by any means …
… but all of this does not mean that there is no speech recognition software for Linux.
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/pervasive/embedded_viavoice/
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/pervasive/embedded_viavoice/about/?S…
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2397463058.html
so it isn’t 10 years away, by any means …
It still means it is WAY from useable. I have tried most of those myself too and they all were about as useable in speech recognition as a rock on the bottom of the ocean.
… but all of this does not mean that there is no speech recognition software for Linux.
Both of those links of yours are about software meant for embedded devices and require application support for the engine. Neither of those engines are general-purpose and are of no use for anyone who cannot modify the source code of their applications.
Plans are here:
http://accessibility.freestandards.org/a11yweb/forms/soi.php
Application support for text-to-speech engines here:
http://accessibility.kde.org/
http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/
http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/accessible.html
http://doc.trolltech.com/4.0/qt4-accessibility.html
http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/qt.php
and here:
http://projects.gnome.org/accessibility/
http://www.sun.com/software/star/gnome/accessibility/architecture.x…
I agree, it isn’t there yet, but it certainly isn’t 10 years away either.
Application support for text-to-speech engines here:
Text-to-speech is old and we weren’t talking about that. We were talking about speech-to-text which is a totally different approach altogether. There just is absolutely no useable Linux software for that right now. So, that’s atleast one category which Linux can’t fulfill naturally.
I doubt that’s the only thing. For me Linux would be otherwise just perfect but it so totally sucks as a gaming-platform that there’s no point in even trying.
Well – I do not want to argue that, but how many people are REALLY using speech to text software? I mean – how important is this omission?
How many “standard” users are affected? 0.1%? 0.001%. 0.00001%? – or less?
You are absolutely correct.
Sorry about that, I must have had a brain fade.
Open-source speech recognition is also in the pipeline:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-accessibility&m=120070568122006&w=2
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/simon+(Speech+Interaction+…)?content=73815
http://simon-listens.org/index.php?id=122&L=1
http://blends.alioth.debian.org/accessibility/tasks/speechrecogniti…
It is still all pretty raw, but there is the start of working code here.
Simon + Julius looks to be the most interesting:
http://simon-listens.org/index.php?id=129&L=1
http://simon-listens.org/index.php?id=130&L=1
There is however commercial software for speech recognition for Linux.
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/pervasive/embedded_viavoice/about/?S…
See where it says:
Operating Systems Supported
Windows XP
Windows 2000
Windows CE / Windows Mobile
QNX
Linux
Embedded Linux
T-Engine
MicroItron
VxWorks
RTXC
Edited 2009-05-06 14:07 UTC
There is however commercial software for speech recognition for Linux.