Re: Why Windows--was Redhat makes counter offer
At 15:26 11/21/2001 -0600, Curtis Rey wrote:
Regardless if this is a "cheap" publicity stunt or not. I am very much in favor of this proposal for one over ridding reason. It has been my observation that the common end user prefers to use what they learned on and doesn't want to hassle with a 2nd learning curve. Once they learn "whatever" system that was introduced to them they stay with that system - for better or worse. Hence, this is why M$ gain so much market, but also way Apple users are so devout.
Yes, there is that. I use AutoCad (Lite), and I will continue to do so for as long as I need drafting software. Why learn something else? It's too bad they haven't ported it to Linux. If it was no good, that would be different. /snip/
The only advantage M$ "really" has over Linux is that 90% of the games made for computers are M$ based - and of course any redblooded child will find this attractive.
/snip/ Unfortunately, there is a lot of specialized software out there that does not exist on Linux. Some of it exists on other versions of Unix, but the price is ridiculous. Some of it is just not there. AutoCad is the first example. For instance, there is no GUI version of any kind of SPICE, that I'm aware of, whether free or at a reasonable price, or even at ANY price. There is a very nice freebie (limited size circuits) for Windows. I wish I could think of the name, but it's on my machine at work. I don't believe there's a version of Agilent EESof RF and microwave simulation/ analysis/synthesis software for Linux, even tho it exists on other Unix platforms--or at least on one, I think it's Sun. This is a very expensive program, but if Linux was the only thing I had at work, I couldn't use it. And I DO use it, and I NEED it. There are perhaps one or two other programs that do much the same thing, but I don't believe they're available for Linux either. Our mechanical designers use something called Pro-E. I would be surprised to find a version of that for Linux. It's a 3-d drafting tool, with provision for BOM's, material specs, etc. There is quite simple software out there that a lot of Linux-likers would use if they could figure out how to make it work right--I'm thinking of FONTS. When Linux automatically looks on a Windows drive, and uses it for the fonts, and they work right in all the W/P programs, and on-screen, then we will have one more leg up, but just a leg. The other, technical programs have to come along. I'm certain that there are all sorts of programs for the machine-design industry, for architecture, for chemistry and biochemistry, all written and compiled for Windows. It's not a question of how much they cost, industry can pay that bill, and will; it's a question of whether they exist at all, or ever will. Finally, why am I using Windows to write this? Because there's a SuSE-induced glitch in k-mail that seems to prevent them from recieving this message. --doug, wa2say I'll leave the rest:
Tim Butler passed this on today to another list, but I thought others may have not see it. News & site follows:
"Red Hat, Inc. today proposed an alternative to the settlement announced today of the class-action lawsuit against Microsoft. Red Hat offered to provide open-source software to every school district in the United States free of charge, encouraging Microsoft to redirect the money it would have spent on software into purchasing more hardware for
the 14,000 poorest school districts. Under the Red Hat proposal, by removing Microsoft's higher-priced software from the settlement equation, Microsoft could provide the school districts with many more computers -- greatly extending the benefits Microsoft seeks to provide school districts with their proposed settlement."
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2419968593.html
Hang on folks, if RedHat succeds with this, Linux will make a giant step forward! If this proposal is accepted, Microsoft would end up buying 1 million PC's for poor schools with RedHat donating unlimited upgrades of RedHat Linux to use on them. The other major distributions (SuSE & Mandrake) would do well to follow Redhat's lead on this one! Now let's see if Billy boy really is concerned about the children's technological needs!
* Doug McGarrett (dougmack@i-2000.com) [011121 15:28]:
Finally, why am I using Windows to write this? Because there's a SuSE-induced glitch in k-mail that seems to prevent them from recieving this message.
No, it's a user-induced glitched. You are subscribed as dougmack@i-2000.com but I see repeated attemtps in the log to post as dougmack@mail2.i-2000.com and dougmack@smtp.i-2000.com. Of course, those are rejected because you aren't subscribed with that address. Fix your MTA, don't blame us. -- -ckm
FONTS. When Linux automatically looks on a Windows drive, and uses it for the fonts, and they work right in all the W/P programs, and on-screen, then we will have one more leg up, but just a leg. The other, technical programs have to come along.
Mandrake will search for fonts in Windows and set them up, although you do have to go into the fonts control panel to do such (probably not too much for even a newbie, although automatic would be better). -Tim -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler | Universal Networks | http://www.uninet.info tbutler@uninetsolutions.com ICQ: 12495932 AIM: Uninettm Christian Portal and Search Tool: http://www.faithtree.com Open Source Migration Guide: http://www.ofb.biz ============= "Christian Web Services Since 1996" ==============
* Timothy R. Butler (tbutler@uninetsolutions.com) [011121 17:04]:
Mandrake will search for fonts in Windows and set them up, although you do have to go into the fonts control panel to do such (probably not too much for even a newbie, although automatic would be better).
See our /usr/X11R6/bin/fetchmsttfonts -- it grabs the fonts directly from an ftp server at microsoft.com and installs them. Even better since, as well as giving you the aa fonts, it puts a load on MS. -- -ckm
And the script works excellent I may add, thanks to our friends at SuSE. -----Original Message----- From: Christopher Mahmood [mailto:ckm@suse.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 4:14 PM To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: Re: [SLE] Re: Why Windows--was Redhat makes counter offer * Timothy R. Butler (tbutler@uninetsolutions.com) [011121 17:04]:
Mandrake will search for fonts in Windows and set them up, although you do have to go into the fonts control panel to do such (probably not too much for even a newbie, although automatic would be better).
See our /usr/X11R6/bin/fetchmsttfonts -- it grabs the fonts directly from an ftp server at microsoft.com and installs them. Even better since, as well as giving you the aa fonts, it puts a load on MS. -- -ckm -
* Timothy R. Butler (tbutler@uninetsolutions.com) [011121 17:04]:
Mandrake will search for fonts in Windows and set them up, although you do have to go into the fonts control panel to do such (probably not too much for even a newbie, although automatic would be better).
See our /usr/X11R6/bin/fetchmsttfonts -- it grabs the fonts directly from an ftp server at microsoft.com and installs them. Even better since, as well as giving you the aa fonts, it puts a load on MS.
Retrieving the Windows fonts from my Windows install wasn't any big deal using SuSE 7.3. Getting them to look decent in KDE and Konqueror on the other hand.... I still cannot seem to get KDE to turn anti aliasing off for TrueType fonts. Having it on makes all the TrueType Windows fonts look either bold or fuzzy. It gives me such a headache to browse the web that I normally boot back into Windows in order to give my eyes a rest. [ If there is a way to resolve this, I'd love to know it. ] Gabe Sumner gabe@iland.net --
I still cannot seem to get KDE to turn anti aliasing off for TrueType fonts. Having it on makes all the TrueType Windows fonts look either bold or fuzzy. It gives me such a headache to browse the web that I normally boot back into Windows in order to give my eyes a rest.
Go to Control Center > Look & Feel > Fonts, then uncheck "Enable Anti-Aliasing." -Tim -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler | Universal Networks | http://www.uninet.info tbutler@uninetsolutions.com ICQ: 12495932 AIM: Uninettm Christian Portal and Search Tool: http://www.faithtree.com Open Source Migration Guide: http://www.ofb.biz ============= "Christian Web Services Since 1996" ==============
I still cannot seem to get KDE to turn anti aliasing off for TrueType fonts. Having it on makes all the TrueType Windows fonts look either bold or fuzzy. It gives me such a headache to browse the web that I normally boot back into Windows in order to give my eyes a rest.
Go to Control Center > Look & Feel > Fonts, then uncheck "Enable Anti-Aliasing."
But then I'm unable to use the TrueType fonts. Gabe Sumner gabe@iland.net --
On Wednesday 21 November 2001 09:41 pm, you wrote:
I still cannot seem to get KDE to turn anti aliasing off for TrueType fonts. Having it on makes all the TrueType Windows fonts look either bold or fuzzy. It gives me such a headache to browse the web that I normally boot back into Windows in order to give my eyes a rest.
Go to Control Center > Look & Feel > Fonts, then uncheck "Enable Anti-Aliasing."
But then I'm unable to use the TrueType fonts.
Hmm... that's strange. Try opening up /etc/X11/XF86Config in Kwrite or some other editor and see if one of the font directories it mentioned is /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype . BTW, I'm assuming that is where you installed your truetypes, right? Anyway, if that is missing, open up a konsole, and type: kdesu -c "kwrite /etc/X11/XF86Config" Now in this "root" KWrite, add this line around the other FontPath lines: FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype" Finally save the file, and exit KWrite. That should do it. -Tim -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler | Universal Networks | http://www.uninet.info tbutler@uninetsolutions.com ICQ: 12495932 AIM: Uninettm Christian Portal and Search Tool: http://www.faithtree.com Open Source Migration Guide: http://www.ofb.biz ============= "Christian Web Services Since 1996" ==============
On Thursday 22 November 2001 3:41 am, Gabe Sumner wrote:
Go to Control Center > Look & Feel > Fonts, then uncheck "Enable Anti-Aliasing."
But then I'm unable to use the TrueType fonts.
Try turning off anti-aliasing for small font sizes. -- Cheers, Chris Howells -- chris@chrishowells.co.uk, howells@kde.org Web: http://chrishowells.co.uk, PGP key: http://chrishowells.co.uk/pgp.txt KDE: http://www.koffice.org, http://edu.kde.org, http://usability.kde.org
On Wednesday 21 November 2001 10:41 pm, you wrote:
Go to Control Center > Look & Feel > Fonts, then uncheck "Enable Anti-Aliasing."
But then I'm unable to use the TrueType fonts.
True type fonts on the web work fine with Mozilla and Konqueror, and IIRC also Opera 5 for Linux. I installed the fonts by running the fetchmstfonts script, perhaps that's your problem. You may be experiencing a lack of usage of TTFs because of Netscape 4's lack of support. NS4 seems to use it's own set of fonts rather than loading Ariel and others when the web asks for them. However, with recent versions (running 0.96 here) of Mozilla being very robust compared to old versions, actually less buggy than NS4, I rarely run NS4 ; except for sites requiring flash, or requiring Real Video, a plug-in only Realplayer window, or a streaming MP3. (Does anyone have any hints on getting these to work with Mozilla?)
See our /usr/X11R6/bin/fetchmsttfonts -- it grabs the fonts directly from an ftp server at microsoft.com and installs them. Even better since, as well as giving you the aa fonts, it puts a load on MS.
Actually there is an advantage in the way FontDrake does it. People like me have 200 or 300 fonts in Windows, much more than the basic MS fonts (although any load on MS's servers is a good load. ;-). Perhaps SuSE should look into including the nifty little FontDrake utility with SuSE Linux - it's GPL'ed... -Tim -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler | Universal Networks | http://www.uninet.info tbutler@uninetsolutions.com ICQ: 12495932 AIM: Uninettm Christian Portal and Search Tool: http://www.faithtree.com Open Source Migration Guide: http://www.ofb.biz ============= "Christian Web Services Since 1996" ==============
On Thursday 22 November 2001 1:14, Christopher Mahmood wrote:
See our /usr/X11R6/bin/fetchmsttfonts -- it grabs the fonts directly from an ftp server at microsoft.com and installs them.
I can't get it to work! I ran the script as root, ignoring the Proxy part. It connected to Microsoft's Licence page and there it stopped. I could not find any way of exiting the page and continuing with the download/install. What do I do to make it work, please? Sorry if this is a very basic question. I have looked in the archives and also the SuSE help files, but can't find the answer. Many thanks Keith
Hi Keith, On Thursday 22. November 2001 12:32, Keith Powell wrote:
On Thursday 22 November 2001 1:14, Christopher Mahmood wrote:
See our /usr/X11R6/bin/fetchmsttfonts -- it grabs the fonts directly from an ftp server at microsoft.com and installs them.
I can't get it to work!
I ran the script as root, ignoring the Proxy part. It connected to Microsoft's Licence page and there it stopped. I could not find any way of exiting the page and continuing with the download/install.
Well, one time I had to wait a very long time to get connected in order to download the fonts - the whole process took about 1 hour! So, maybe you have just to wait a little more for the downloading process to continue. By the way you can exit the license page by pressing the `q` key. Best regards, Ming-Che -- WTC > /dev/null; chmod +x /usr/bin/laden; rm -rf /usr/bin/laden ICQ#: 126097979
On Thu, Nov 22, Keith Powell wrote:
I can't get it to work!
I ran the script as root, ignoring the Proxy part. It connected to Microsoft's Licence page and there it stopped. I could not find any way of exiting the page and continuing with the download/install.
What do I do to make it work, please?
Sorry if this is a very basic question. I have looked in the archives and also the SuSE help files, but can't find the answer.
The script is not very user friendly and a lot of people are stumped, when they see the license text. Simply press "q" to exit the viewer, and it should continue the installation. Bye, LenZ -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Lenz Grimmer SuSE GmbH mailto:grimmer@suse.de Schanzaeckerstr. 10 http://www.suse.de/~grimmer/ 90443 Nuernberg, Germany That was a pointing device? My cat thought it was dinner.
Hello LenZ and Ming-Che Thanks for the information about the "q" key. I thought it must have been something simple! The fonts are now downloaded and installed. I must see if I can install them into Star Office and Abiword. Like many others, I can't get KWord to print correctly, so that word processor is a no-go at the moment. Cheers Keith
On Thursday 22 November 2001 1:33 pm, Keith Powell wrote:
others, I can't get KWord to print correctly, so that word processor is a no-go at the moment.
You *should* be able to print properly using Arial or something. The problem with printing using helvetica (e.g. the ones supplied with SuSE) should now be fixed, so should make it into KOffice 1.1.1. -- Cheers, Chris Howells -- chris@chrishowells.co.uk, howells@kde.org Web: http://chrishowells.co.uk, PGP key: http://chrishowells.co.uk/pgp.txt KDE: http://www.koffice.org, http://edu.kde.org, http://usability.kde.org
Hello Chris. Thanks for the reply. The Arial font print-out appears to be correct. All the other fonts, even the ones I downloaded this morning with fetchmsttfonts, print as straight sans -serif. There are no serif fonts or the "fancy" comic. The screen fonts are OK on the new ones. Cheers Keith On Thursday 22 November 2001 4:49, Chris Howells wrote:
On Thursday 22 November 2001 1:33 pm, Keith Powell wrote:
others, I can't get KWord to print correctly, so that word processor is a no-go at the moment.
You *should* be able to print properly using Arial or something.
The problem with printing using helvetica (e.g. the ones supplied with SuSE) should now be fixed, so should make it into KOffice 1.1.1.
A few other points On Thursday 22 November 2001 00:27, Doug McGarrett wrote:
Yes, there is that. I use AutoCad (Lite), and I will continue to do so for as long as I need drafting software. Why learn something else? It's too bad they haven't ported it to Linux. If it was no good, that would be different.
Have you told them that if they ported it, you would become a customer? Companies won't ever port software unless they see a market.
For instance, there is no GUI version of any kind of SPICE, that I'm aware of, whether free or at a reasonable price, or even at ANY price. There is a very nice freebie (limited size circuits) for Windows. I wish I could think of the name, but it's on my machine at work.
Don't say "any" until you've searched freshmeat for "spice". I got 9 hits, at least some of them GUI. I have no idea about their quality, but they do exist. One of them made by Berkely, even.
I don't believe there's a version of Agilent EESof RF and microwave simulation/ analysis/synthesis software for Linux, even tho it exists on other Unix platforms--or at least on one, I think it's Sun. This is a very expensive program, but if Linux was the only thing I had at work, I couldn't use it. And I DO use it, and I NEED it. There are perhaps one or two other programs that do much the same thing, but I don't believe they're available for Linux either.
Have you told them that if they ported it, you would become a customer? Companies won't ever port software unless they see a market.
Our mechanical designers use something called Pro-E. I would be surprised to find a version of that for Linux. It's a 3-d drafting tool, with provision for BOM's, material specs, etc.
Same answer, but with a link. Sign up: http://homepages.internet-montblanc.fr/prolinux/index.html
There is quite simple software out there that a lot of Linux-likers would use if they could figure out how to make it work right--I'm thinking of FONTS. When Linux automatically looks on a Windows drive, and uses it for the fonts, and they work right in all the W/P programs, and on-screen, then we will have one more leg up, but just a leg. The other, technical programs have to come along.
Not really. The goal should be to have free fonts available, so we don't have to get them from a win-partition. I don't even have a win-partition, for that matter. If you're a graphical designer, here's your chance to make an impact on the OSS world: create a really smashing TT-font that's free to use (can fonts be covered by the GPL?)
I'm certain that there are all sorts of programs for the machine-design industry, for architecture, for chemistry and biochemistry, all written and compiled for Windows. It's not a question of how much they cost, industry can pay that bill, and will; it's a question of whether they exist at all, or ever will.
I'm (almost) certain that these programs are much more readily available for Unix platforms like Solaris or SGI. These platforms have a very high usage with CAD people, but since programs can be very easily ported from these platforms to linux (often little more than a recompile is needed). Ref for instance the movie world, where companies moved with little or no trouble from SGI to linux, and reports state that they are more than pleased with the result. Even Bill Gates' DreamWorks run linux now (does he know? :) regards Anders
On Thursday 22 November 2001 00:27, Doug McGarrett wrote:
Finally, why am I using Windows to write this? Because there's a SuSE-induced glitch in k-mail that seems to prevent them from recieving this message.
I've used kmail to send (too?) many messages to this list. kmail isn't perfect, but it certainly won't prevent your sending mail to this list regards Anders
participants (11)
-
Anders Johansson -
Chris Howells -
Christopher Mahmood -
Doug McGarrett -
Gabe Sumner -
Joshua Lee -
Keith Powell -
Lenz Grimmer -
Ming-Che Lee -
Timothy R.Butler -
W.D.McKinney