[OT] Linux for home Desktop.
Dear all! i just decided to share some of my thoughts with everyone. The reason i use linux (SuSE 7.2 of cource) at home is that i take part in developing some thngs for Unix platform, and i noticed that i did not load my Win2000 for a long time. (last time i booted in it i found that sound mysteroiusly dissapered there :-) ). By this time i found almost all Linux replacements of the things i used to in Win32, such as: MS-Windows desktop --> KDE MS-Office --> StarOffice, WinAmp + WMP -> XMMS Explorer --> Mozilla Windows Commander --> zsh command line :-) MSDev Studio --> KDev and VSlick editor + DDD. and etc, not to mention that such things as Matlab, Corel suite, Quake, and etc, are simply ported to linux and look and feel the same. I admired to see that on my home PC, Quake3 in Win2000 and Linux runs with EQUAL FPS. i also managed to configure my USB Joystick to work with it (just to see if it works) But while setting up my home desktop enviroment, i had to do much of the things manually, (putting symlinks for plugins in mozilla, enabling Acrobat Reader plugin in KDE, firing up ide-scsi, downloading windows movie codeks for avifile, configuring modules.conf manually to enable my joystick, and many more) if a mean home user, used to 'Plug and Pray' system would know that must do all this things, he will never buy it (even comparing a 30$ for 3CD of various FREE soft with ~100$ just for OS.) I admire the SuSE develper's work, most packages come already pre-configured. Comparing to other distributions, i chose this one, because of numerous small features, that are done smarter than in oother systems. THANK YOU GUYS! IF ONLY PIZZA DELIVERED FROM RUSSIA WOULD NOT GET COLD, I WOULD SENT IT TO YOU, REALLY! Linux celebrated 10year anniversary with great results, and more are to be archived. This is not a point to stop. Linux have all chances to become the most Plug-and-Playable system ever, and for this we should work together. A system will become a user-friendly if, and only if, we, (i.e. users) will take a major part in building it. This means not urgent studying C/C++ and fixing the things we want -- i think the developers will also like this, but first of all -- EXPRESSING THE THINGS WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN OUR SYSTEM. KDE wishlist is fat anough already, but this about only one susbsytem. The OS (like SuSE Linux) is a set of such subsystems, and most od them are doubling each other in functionality. It is good, cause it gives a freedom of choise. But this sub-systems must be interconnected, at least in the way it is in SuSE. we, users, must demand more features that we would like to see in OS package! Just do not be shy to demand the features you want! demand pre-configured plugins in Mozilla, demand pre-installed codeks for movies demand auto loading and configuring kernel modules on USB device plugin. demand other behavior of right-mouse-button click and window focus tranfer, demand more features for YAST[2] And when the feature you requested appears in the next release of SuSE (or even in YOU ) -- then, put your name in Open Enviromnt buiders list -- you will deserve it! in the coming Linux decade must become the most USER_FRIENDLY OS! And we (i.e. users) will do it! PS: Once MS made a great work with it's users and beta-testers to build that win'95 enviroment we all familiar with. Now MS make a grave for themselves with that activation feature, and WE must use it to establish the Open Standards not only in Software enviroment, but in our common life too.
On Sunday 02 September 2001 10:44 am, Vitaly Shishakov wrote:
Just do not be shy to demand the features you want! demand pre-configured plugins in Mozilla, demand pre-installed codeks for movies demand auto loading and configuring kernel modules on USB device plugin. demand other behavior of right-mouse-button click and window focus tranfer, demand more features for YAST[2]
Uhhhh you are demanding things from a dedicated bunch of VOLUNTEERS. SuSE doesn't provide these things, the volunteers who write the code provide them. Treat them very gently.
And when the feature you requested appears in the next release of SuSE (or even in YOU ) -- then, put your name in Open Enviromnt buiders list -- you will deserve it!
No again.... those who write the code on their own time (and probably eat a lot of cold pizza while doing it) are the ones who will deserve the credit.
in the coming Linux decade must become the most USER_FRIENDLY OS! And we (i.e. users) will do it!
No again... the code writers will have done it. They need feedback, yes... but not demands. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Bruce S. Marshall bmarsh@bmarsh.com Bellaire, MI 09/02/01 11:25 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10."
On Sunday 02 September 2001 3:27 pm, Bruce Marshall wrote:
On Sunday 02 September 2001 10:44 am, Vitaly Shishakov wrote:
Just do not be shy to demand the features you want! demand pre-configured plugins in Mozilla, demand pre-installed codeks for movies demand auto loading and configuring kernel modules on USB device plugin. demand other behavior of right-mouse-button click and window focus tranfer, demand more features for YAST[2]
Uhhhh you are demanding things from a dedicated bunch of VOLUNTEERS. SuSE doesn't provide these things, the volunteers who write the code provide them. Treat them very gently.
And when the feature you requested appears in the next release of SuSE (or even in YOU ) -- then, put your name in Open Enviromnt buiders list -- you will deserve it!
No again.... those who write the code on their own time (and probably eat a lot of cold pizza while doing it) are the ones who will deserve the credit.
in the coming Linux decade must become the most USER_FRIENDLY OS! And we (i.e. users) will do it!
No again... the code writers will have done it. They need feedback, yes... but not demands.
When reading other peoples posts I think you should remember that English is not always their first language. I think you should recognise praise where praise is due. SuSE has done an excellent job packaging Open Source software and putting it together into a unique high-quality distribution. M
On Sunday 02 September 2001 12:45 pm, Martin Webster wrote:
On Sunday 02 September 2001 3:27 pm, Bruce Marshall wrote:
On Sunday 02 September 2001 10:44 am, Vitaly Shishakov wrote:
Just do not be shy to demand the features you want! demand pre-configured plugins in Mozilla, demand pre-installed codeks for movies demand auto loading and configuring kernel modules on USB device plugin. demand other behavior of right-mouse-button click and window focus tranfer, demand more features for YAST[2]
Uhhhh you are demanding things from a dedicated bunch of VOLUNTEERS. SuSE doesn't provide these things, the volunteers who write the code provide them. Treat them very gently.
And when the feature you requested appears in the next release of SuSE (or even in YOU ) -- then, put your name in Open Enviromnt buiders list -- you will deserve it!
No again.... those who write the code on their own time (and probably eat a lot of cold pizza while doing it) are the ones who will deserve the credit.
in the coming Linux decade must become the most USER_FRIENDLY OS! And we (i.e. users) will do it!
No again... the code writers will have done it. They need feedback, yes... but not demands.
When reading other peoples posts I think you should remember that English is not always their first language. I think you should recognise praise where praise is due. SuSE has done an excellent job packaging Open Source software and putting it together into a unique high-quality distribution.
M
What did I say that indicated I was critizing SuSE...? SuSE packages code, and they do a very good job of it... but they can't package what hasn't been produced and for the very large part, they don't produce code. I guess my point went totally over your head..... Sorry. Going off very befuddled.... (which of course is a term that some people may not understand) -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Bruce S. Marshall bmarsh@bmarsh.com Bellaire, MI 09/02/01 11:53 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
On Sunday 02 September 2001 3:57 pm, Bruce Marshall wrote:
On Sunday 02 September 2001 12:45 pm, Martin Webster wrote:
On Sunday 02 September 2001 3:27 pm, Bruce Marshall wrote:
On Sunday 02 September 2001 10:44 am, Vitaly Shishakov wrote:
Just do not be shy to demand the features you want! demand pre-configured plugins in Mozilla, demand pre-installed codeks for movies demand auto loading and configuring kernel modules on USB device plugin. demand other behavior of right-mouse-button click and window focus tranfer, demand more features for YAST[2]
Uhhhh you are demanding things from a dedicated bunch of VOLUNTEERS. SuSE doesn't provide these things, the volunteers who write the code provide them. Treat them very gently.
And when the feature you requested appears in the next release of SuSE (or even in YOU ) -- then, put your name in Open Enviromnt buiders list -- you will deserve it!
No again.... those who write the code on their own time (and probably eat a lot of cold pizza while doing it) are the ones who will deserve the credit.
in the coming Linux decade must become the most USER_FRIENDLY OS! And we (i.e. users) will do it!
No again... the code writers will have done it. They need feedback, yes... but not demands.
When reading other peoples posts I think you should remember that English is not always their first language. I think you should recognise praise where praise is due. SuSE has done an excellent job packaging Open Source software and putting it together into a unique high-quality distribution.
M
What did I say that indicated I was critizing SuSE...? SuSE packages code, and they do a very good job of it... but they can't package what hasn't been produced and for the very large part, they don't produce code.
I guess my point went totally over your head..... Sorry.
Going off very befuddled.... (which of course is a term that some people may not understand)
I didn't say you were criticising SuSE; I though your reply to Vitaly Shishakov was inappropriate. I think you missed the point he was making because you read his post literally. M
Vitaly Shishakov wrote:
Dear all!
i just decided to share some of my thoughts with everyone.
The reason i use linux (SuSE 7.2 of cource) at home is that i take part in developing some thngs for Unix platform, and i noticed that i did not load my Win2000 for a long time. (last time i booted in it i found that sound mysteroiusly dissapered there :-) ). By this time i found almost all Linux replacements of the things i used to in Win32, such as:
MS-Windows desktop --> KDE MS-Office --> StarOffice, WinAmp + WMP -> XMMS Explorer --> Mozilla Windows Commander --> zsh command line :-) MSDev Studio --> KDev and VSlick editor + DDD. and etc, not to mention that such things as Matlab, Corel suite, Quake, and etc, are simply ported to linux and look and feel the same.
I admired to see that on my home PC, Quake3 in Win2000 and Linux runs with EQUAL FPS. i also managed to configure my USB Joystick to work with it (just to see if it works)
But while setting up my home desktop enviroment, i had to do much of the things manually, (putting symlinks for plugins in mozilla, enabling Acrobat Reader plugin in KDE, firing up ide-scsi, downloading windows movie codeks for avifile, configuring modules.conf manually to enable my joystick, and many more)
if a mean home user, used to 'Plug and Pray' system would know that must do all this things, he will never buy it (even comparing a 30$ for 3CD of various FREE soft with ~100$ just for OS.)
I admire the SuSE develper's work, most packages come already pre-configured. Comparing to other distributions, i chose this one, because of numerous small features, that are done smarter than in oother systems.
THANK YOU GUYS! IF ONLY PIZZA DELIVERED FROM RUSSIA WOULD NOT GET COLD, I WOULD SENT IT TO YOU, REALLY!
Linux celebrated 10year anniversary with great results, and more are to be archived. This is not a point to stop. Linux have all chances to become the most Plug-and-Playable system ever, and for this we should work together.
A system will become a user-friendly if, and only if, we, (i.e. users) will take a major part in building it. This means not urgent studying C/C++ and fixing the things we want -- i think the developers will also like this, but first of all -- EXPRESSING THE THINGS WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN OUR SYSTEM.
KDE wishlist is fat anough already, but this about only one susbsytem.
The OS (like SuSE Linux) is a set of such subsystems, and most od them are doubling each other in functionality. It is good, cause it gives a freedom of choise. But this sub-systems must be interconnected, at least in the way it is in SuSE. we, users, must demand more features that we would like to see in OS package!
Just do not be shy to demand the features you want! demand pre-configured plugins in Mozilla, demand pre-installed codeks for movies demand auto loading and configuring kernel modules on USB device plugin. demand other behavior of right-mouse-button click and window focus tranfer, demand more features for YAST[2] And when the feature you requested appears in the next release of SuSE (or even in YOU ) -- then, put your name in Open Enviromnt buiders list -- you will deserve it!
in the coming Linux decade must become the most USER_FRIENDLY OS! And we (i.e. users) will do it!
PS: Once MS made a great work with it's users and beta-testers to build that win'95 enviroment we all familiar with. Now MS make a grave for themselves with that activation feature, and WE must use it to establish the Open Standards not only in Software enviroment, but in our common life too.
I already saw some feedback on my message. I did not really want a flame blowing here, but i would people to understand me correctly: most people are just too shy to place their feedback to developers and package makers, whereas more feedback could help make linux more user-friendly enviroment. I admire the work of Open Source develpers, who do all this stuf mostly in their spare time. I greatly admire work of SuSE engineers. And though this company now spares hard days, it still continues to deliver us its great solutions and service. If you are a programmer, and know how to do the thing you want to see -- just tell it or post you changes. If you are not -- just tell your wishes. I say all this things, because i know some of my friend who patch programs themselves, saying: someone should have already posted the bug/feature i found, why should I tell the developer about it twice? -- But they did not even check this, and in the next release they find the same old bugs/features in their old places. For example MOZILLA project -- i guess they have enough work on sorting wishes and bug reportings already, but still, they ask us (users) for more feedback to improve the quality of their product for us (users) That is exactly what i wanted to say, not willing to offend our honored developers and package builders! Sincerelly here, Vitaly.
<snip>
I already saw some feedback on my message.
I did not really want a flame blowing here, but i would people to understand me correctly:
most people are just too shy to place their feedback to developers and package makers, whereas more feedback could help make linux more user-friendly enviroment.
I admire the work of Open Source develpers, who do all this stuf mostly in their spare time. I greatly admire work of SuSE engineers. And though this company now spares hard days, it still continues to deliver us its great solutions and service.
If you are a programmer, and know how to do the thing you want to see -- just tell it or post you changes. If you are not -- just tell your wishes.
I say all this things, because i know some of my friend who patch programs themselves, saying: someone should have already posted the bug/feature i found, why should I tell the developer about it twice? -- But they did not even check this, and in the next release they find the same old bugs/features in their old places.
For example MOZILLA project -- i guess they have enough work on sorting wishes and bug reportings already, but still, they ask us (users) for more feedback to improve the quality of their product for us (users)
That is exactly what i wanted to say, not willing to offend our honored developers and package builders!
Sincerelly here, Vitaly.
And if a distro went a step further and integrated some of those plugins lot of reviewers would probably be impressed, but I understand time=money. By the way, with PenguinFriendly I have had quite a few succeses, take for instance classicfm.co.uk, this used to not work with Konqueror and Mozilla and others have always answered my questions to some extent, even tried to work around issues so that everyone can access certain parts of the website. If more people would provide both positive and negative feedback things would improve and you would benefit. [OT]On Penguin Friendly I am still out of work and cannot afford to move the site right now, unless soemone wants to host a full domain (and if you want to do web design let me know too, just have to be W3C compliant).[OT] The problem here is a balance between percieved bloat and functionality but what is exactly bloat? Matt
On Sunday 02 September 2001 9:53 pm, Vitaly Shishakov wrote:
I already saw some feedback on my message.
I did not really want a flame blowing here, but i would people to understand me correctly:
most people are just too shy to place their feedback to developers and package makers, whereas more feedback could help make linux more user-friendly enviroment.
I admire the work of Open Source develpers, who do all this stuf mostly in their spare time. I greatly admire work of SuSE engineers. And though this company now spares hard days, it still continues to deliver us its great solutions and service.
If you are a programmer, and know how to do the thing you want to see -- just tell it or post you changes. If you are not -- just tell your wishes.
I say all this things, because i know some of my friend who patch programs themselves, saying: someone should have already posted the bug/feature i found, why should I tell the developer about it twice? -- But they did not even check this, and in the next release they find the same old bugs/features in their old places.
For example MOZILLA project -- i guess they have enough work on sorting wishes and bug reportings already, but still, they ask us (users) for more feedback to improve the quality of their product for us (users)
That is exactly what i wanted to say, not willing to offend our honored developers and package builders!
Thank you for your message. I too dislike flaming and try to be careful with my language (and English is my language) in these groups. I made my original post because I thought you were misunderstood and recieved an inappropriate response. I believe you've made clear what was meant by your original post. And, I don't think you offended anyone! M
<snip>
Thank you for your message. I too dislike flaming and try to be careful with my language (and English is my language) in these groups. I made my original post because I thought you were misunderstood and recieved an inappropriate response.
I believe you've made clear what was meant by your original post. And, I don't think you offended anyone!
M
I think the only thing that might have raised a flag was the word "demand". Far better word is suggest :-). Matt
On Sunday 02 September 2001 10:38 pm, StarTux wrote:
<snip>
Thank you for your message. I too dislike flaming and try to be careful with my language (and English is my language) in these groups. I made my original post because I thought you were misunderstood and recieved an inappropriate response.
I believe you've made clear what was meant by your original post. And, I don't think you offended anyone!
M
I think the only thing that might have raised a flag was the word "demand". Far better word is suggest :-).
I think we should commend Vitaly for his command of English. I read "demand" as "request" in his original post. There are many people from many nations using this list who use English as a second language. Maybe a bit of patients is needed by those of us who only speak one language. Last said on the subject... M
On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 01:53:12AM +0400, Vitaly Shishakov wrote:
Vitaly Shishakov wrote:
Dear all! <friendly snip>
I already saw some feedback on my message.
I did not really want a flame blowing here, but i would people to understand me correctly:
most people are just too shy to place their feedback to developers and package makers, whereas more feedback could help make linux more user-friendly enviroment.
I admire the work of Open Source develpers, who do all this stuf mostly in their spare time. I greatly admire work of SuSE engineers. And though this company now spares hard days, it still continues to deliver us its great solutions and service.
If you are a programmer, and know how to do the thing you want to see -- just tell it or post you changes. If you are not -- just tell your wishes.
I say all this things, because i know some of my friend who patch programs themselves, saying: someone should have already posted the bug/feature i found, why should I tell the developer about it twice? -- But they did not even check this, and in the next release they find the same old bugs/features in their old places.
For example MOZILLA project -- i guess they have enough work on sorting wishes and bug reportings already, but still, they ask us (users) for more feedback to improve the quality of their product for us (users)
That is exactly what i wanted to say, not willing to offend our honored developers and package builders!
Sincerelly here, Vitaly.
I think most people understood the sentiments expressed in your message :) Cliff
Vitaly unconciously raises an interesting point: the Linux Experience _can_ be a good one, provided you _do_ have some Linux experience to begin with, which seems like a contradiction. Vitaly, you make it seem Linux (particularly SuSE 7.2) is perfectly ready as a newbie replacement for Windows 9x for home users. The truth, however, could not be further. You specify the many things you had to do to have a truly pleasing "experience" ("putting symlinks for plugins in mozilla, enabling Acrobat Reader plugin in KDE, firing up ide-scsi, downloading windows movie codeks for avifile, configuring modules.conf manually to enable my joystick"), something that the average user would spend dozens of hours trying to figure out, if ever succeeding. You are the cream-of-the-crop in the Linux world: all your hardware is supported flawlessly, all the software you need is ported as or has Linux equivalents, etc. Once again, you are the elite. Most users would not even consider Linux after hearing of its disadvantages as a home OS: StarOffice is nowhere near as fast or feature-full as MS Office, IE is nowhere near as stable and fails to render all pages perfectly, fonts (even anti-aliased) look like crap compared to the latest WIndows / Mac desktop (my win95 installation has better / more fonts than my SuSE 7.2 installation), no standard package format, no standard GUI, no standard video / audio API (a la DirectX), etc. You seem to have taken your near-perfect subjective Linux experiences and carried them over to the objective standpoint, declaring in the meantime that SuSE 7.2 can serve as a replacement for virtually any home desktop. For me, however, the opposite is true. Win95 is my standard OS (I'm writing this in Pegasus Mail), while SuSE 7.2 remains mainly as a hobby apart from the CD-burning I occasionally do here at home. At school, however, SuSE 7.2 is more prevalent. SuSE 7.2 is the router and file server, as well as the Internet terminal. To sum it all up, Linux will need a _long_ time to become as usable as a home desktop as Windows 9x / NT. It's a Catch-22: Linux needs standards to become popular, and popularity will bring those standards. On 2 Sep 2001, Vitaly Shishakov wrote:
i just decided to share some of my thoughts with everyone.
The reason i use linux (SuSE 7.2 of cource) at home is that i take part in developing some thngs for Unix platform, and i noticed that i did not load my Win2000 for a long time. (last time i booted in it i found that sound mysteroiusly dissapered there :-) ). By this time i found almost all Linux replacements of the things i used to in Win32, such as:
MS-Windows desktop --> KDE MS-Office --> StarOffice, WinAmp + WMP -> XMMS Explorer --> Mozilla Windows Commander --> zsh command line :-) MSDev Studio --> KDev and VSlick editor + DDD.
and etc, not to mention that such things as Matlab, Corel suite, Quake, and etc, are simply ported to linux and look and feel the same.
I admired to see that on my home PC, Quake3 in Win2000 and Linux runs with EQUAL FPS. i also managed to configure my USB Joystick to work with it (just to see if it works)
But while setting up my home desktop enviroment, i had to do much of the things manually, (putting symlinks for plugins in mozilla, enabling Acrobat Reader plugin in KDE, firing up ide-scsi, downloading windows movie codeks for avifile, configuring modules.conf manually to enable my joystick, and many more)
if a mean home user, used to 'Plug and Pray' system would know that must do all this things, he will never buy it (even comparing a 30$ for 3CD of various FREE soft with ~100$ just for OS.)
I admire the SuSE develper's work, most packages come already pre-configured. Comparing to other distributions, i chose this one, because of numerous small features, that are done smarter than in oother systems.
THANK YOU GUYS! IF ONLY PIZZA DELIVERED FROM RUSSIA WOULD NOT GET COLD, I WOULD SENT IT TO YOU, REALLY!
Linux celebrated 10year anniversary with great results, and more are to be archived. This is not a point to stop. Linux have all chances to become the most Plug-and-Playable system ever, and for this we should work together.
A system will become a user-friendly if, and only if, we, (i.e. users) will take a major part in building it. This means not urgent studying C/C++ and fixing the things we want -- i think the developers will also like this, but first of all -- EXPRESSING THE THINGS WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN OUR SYSTEM.
KDE wishlist is fat anough already, but this about only one susbsytem.
The OS (like SuSE Linux) is a set of such subsystems, and most od them are doubling each other in functionality. It is good, cause it gives a freedom of choise. But this sub-systems must be interconnected, at least in the way it is in SuSE. we, users, must demand more features that we would like to see in OS package!
Just do not be shy to demand the features you want! demand pre-configured plugins in Mozilla, demand pre-installed codeks for movies demand auto loading and configuring kernel modules on USB device plugin. demand other behavior of right-mouse-button click and window focus tranfer, demand more features for YAST[2] And when the feature you requested appears in the next release of SuSE (or even in YOU ) -- then, put your name in Open Enviromnt buiders list -- you will deserve it!
in the coming Linux decade must become the most USER_FRIENDLY OS! And we (i.e. users) will do it!
PS: Once MS made a great work with it's users and beta-testers to build that win'95 enviroment we all familiar with. Now MS make a grave for themselves with that activation feature, and WE must use it to establish the Open Standards not only in Software enviroment, but in our common life too. -- noodlez: Karol Pietrzak PGP KeyID: 0x3A1446A0
Karol, Some points you make I agree with, but most I do not. I do believe Linux is ready for the desktop and from the different distros I have seen, SuSE leads the way in doing that. I came directly from the AmigaOS, use Winblows and a little MacOS to Linux. Took me about 30-45 minutes to install, setup and start using Linux without ever having played with it before! I consider that pretty good considering I have never installed Windows in that short a time nor had it up and running right after installation. I think it says a lot for the newbie getting started with Linux on the desktop. I have had the same luck in all the installations I have done since with SuSE on different hardware. I also find the programs comparable to any I have used on other platforms and StarOffice is a blessing compared to MS Office/Word, I think. Of course, I still prefer WordPerfect/Office to both. Other programs available on Linux have also easily replaced the programs I was using and I have only used the other systems since to just download my files over to the Linux box. I too used Pegasus when operating Windows, but found I had to struggle thru the setup and later had to fix or hack commands to get it to work after another Windows program installed itself corrupting dlls in the process, a normal Windows anomaly. Sure, I will agree Linux has a way to go in some areas, but it works, works reliably and was certainly ready for my desktop! end of line Tracer ------------------------- On Sunday 02 September 2001 09:46 pm, Karol Pietrzak, you wrote:
Vitaly unconciously raises an interesting point: the Linux Experience _can_ be a good one, provided you _do_ have some Linux experience to begin with, which seems like a contradiction. Vitaly, you make it seem Linux (particularly SuSE 7.2) is perfectly ready as a newbie replacement for Windows 9x for home users. The truth, however, could not be further.
You are the cream-of-the-crop in the Linux world: all your hardware is supported flawlessly, all the software you need is ported as or has Linux equivalents, etc. Once again, you are the elite.
Most users would not even consider Linux after hearing of its disadvantages as a home OS: StarOffice is nowhere near as fast or feature-full as MS Office, IE is nowhere near as stable and fails to render all pages perfectly, fonts (even anti-aliased) look like crap compared to the latest WIndows / Mac desktop (my win95 installation has better / more fonts than my SuSE 7.2 installation), no standard package format, no standard GUI, no standard video / audio API (a la DirectX), etc.
You seem to have taken your near-perfect subjective Linux experiences and carried them over to the objective standpoint, declaring in the meantime that SuSE 7.2 can serve as a replacement for virtually any home desktop.
For me, however, the opposite is true. Win95 is my standard OS (I'm writing this in Pegasus Mail), while SuSE 7.2 remains mainly as a hobby apart from the CD-burning I occasionally do here at home. At school, however, SuSE 7.2 is more prevalent. SuSE 7.2 is the router and file server, as well as the Internet terminal.
To sum it all up, Linux will need a _long_ time to become as usable as a home desktop as Windows 9x / NT. It's a Catch-22: Linux needs standards to become popular, and popularity will bring those standards. ********************************* -- ---KMail 1.3--- SuSE Linux v7.2--- Registered Linux User #225206 /tracerb@sprintmail.com/ *Magic Page Products* *Team Amiga* http://home.sprintmail.com/~tracerb
On Monday 03 September 2001 03.46, Karol Pietrzak wrote:
Most users would not even consider Linux after hearing of its disadvantages as a home OS: StarOffice is nowhere near as fast or feature-full as MS Office, IE is nowhere near as stable and fails to render all pages perfectly, fonts (even anti-aliased) look like crap compared to the latest WIndows / Mac desktop (my win95 installation has better / more fonts than my SuSE 7.2 installation), no standard package format, no standard GUI, no standard video / audio API (a la DirectX), etc.
Ah, now this is obviously a new meaning of the word 'standard' that I was previously unfamiliar with. RPM may become (or has it already?) a standard. OpenGL is a standard. SDL is a standard. CDE is a standard. Audio I don't know. I think they're working on a standard to parallell SDL, but I'm not sure. I wasn't aware that DirectX had been ratified by a standards body. Of course, I could be wrong, I often am. But until it is, please don't refer to it as a standard. regards Anders
->> Most users would not even consider Linux after hearing of its ->> disadvantages as a home OS: Yes..they do read CNET FUD. ;) ->> StarOffice is nowhere near as fast or feature-full as MS Office, I've worked in big corps and small offices. In IT, helpdesk and other such roles..never have I seen even the most heavy of power user..use all the features. Often I heard complaints about the bloat and their confusion over having to sift through all the features just to find the "one" thing they need. Tons of features does not a wp make. ->> IE is nowhere near as stable and fails to render all pages ->> perfectly, fonts (even anti-aliased) look like crap compared to ->> the latest WIndows / Mac desktop (my win95 installation has ->> better / more fonts than my SuSE 7.2 installation) Well, this is because of proprietary tags that just work in IE such as iframe. It also has to do with the fact that IE ignores bad code which Netscape/Mozilla doesn't. Mozilla can do just fine rendering most anything that IE can. The problem we run into is that developers of these websites do not test with Mozilla/Netscape6 and they use "user-agent" strings to identify the browser. When the server gets a response of "mozilla X.X" from a browser it registers this as Netscape..and doesn't much care what version because the people who put it together do not make any distinction between 4.XX and 6.X .. if it's Netscape then it can handle only blah..blah. So we users who don't have a proprietary browser w/ proprietary tags can't view the site correctly. Do this as an experiment. Go to www.techweb.com w/ Konqueror...you will see that the page is ALL frelled up. Click the icon with the little hat (to change the user-agent) and change the user-agent to IE 5.5 under Win2k and it will auto reload the page and it comes up PERFECTLY. If you use Netscape 4.X or Mozilla's string..it's still frelled up. It's because they don't test for anything but IE under WINDOWS. Even IE 5.1 on MacOSX..a truely modern browser by your standards can't render a lot of pages because it's not tested for fonts or anything else. What your saying is bullshit. You condemn the software when the true root of the problem is the so called " web developers " out there..they are the issue. My wife worked for a HUGE web dev firm..and they were so lazy that they really only tested on IE under Windows. Your statements are weak and easy to dismiss if you do know what your talking about...which you don't. -> no standard package format RPM and DEB. A standard doesn't mean just one way of doing things otherwise we would have 1 world language, 1 culture ..etc..etc. The Nazi's tried to make it this way..we stopped them for a reason.. -> no standard GUI KDE and Gnome..they ship with EVERY distribution.."see above reason" -> no standard video / audio API (a la DirectX) OpenGL and ALSA .. they can be used on every distribution..and even Win/Mac can use OpenGL ..wow multi-platform..now THAT's a standard. Your arguements are weak and very easy to dismiss..if you want to troll about how GRAND Microsoft software is...please do it in your own forum. Not ours. If you want to learn how to make Linux a joy to use..stick around. We will help you get it all correct. And don't think I don't know what I'm talking about..I use to admin a server farm of 350 NT 4.0 servers...granted it was 3.5 years ago..but I do know a bit about standard and what is just plain FUD crap. I haven't touched in since..but my memory serves me well. Cheers.. -- Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org cat CE|ME|NT|XP > /dev/null
On Monday 03 September 2001 7:04 pm, Ben Rosenberg wrote:
Your arguements are weak and very easy to dismiss..if you want to troll about how GRAND Microsoft software is...please do it in your own forum. Not ours. If you want to learn how to make Linux a joy to use..stick around. We will help you get it all correct. And don't think I don't know what I'm talking about..I use to admin a server farm of 350 NT 4.0 servers...granted it was 3.5 years ago..but I do know a bit about standard and what is just plain FUD crap. I haven't touched in since..but my memory serves me well.
Well that's told 'em! ;-) M
On 3 Sep 2001, Ben Rosenberg wrote:
->> StarOffice is nowhere near as fast or feature-full as MS Office,
I've worked in big corps and small offices. In IT, helpdesk and other such roles..never have I seen even the most heavy of power user..use all the features. Often I heard complaints about the bloat and their confusion over having to sift through all the features just to find the "one" thing they need. Tons of features does not a wp make.
Please note that I also mentioned that StarOffice is not as fast as MS Office (at least Office97). As a StarOffice 5.2 user, I sincerely hope Sun deals with this (which they said they will). As many have noted, StarOffice fulfills 99.9% of the market demand for MS Office. As soon as the current SO flaws (e.g. import / export problems for word, excel, powerpoint, etc.) are fixed, I firmly believe it will be hailed as an excellent product. Most home users, however, will not tolerate SO's limitations. Why bother when you can just "borrow" a copy of Office2000 from your friend, which has more features and is faster. These kinds of care-free (and illegal) actions is what allows MS to still maintain its cut-throat hold on the word processor / presentation maker market. Approximately half of MS's revenue comes from Office sales.
->> IE is nowhere near as stable and fails to render all pages ->> perfectly, fonts (even anti-aliased) look like crap compared to ->> the latest WIndows / Mac desktop (my win95 installation has ->> better / more fonts than my SuSE 7.2 installation)
Well, this is because of proprietary tags that just work in IE such as iframe. It also has to do with the fact that IE ignores bad code which Netscape/Mozilla doesn't. Mozilla can do just fine rendering most anything that IE can. The problem we run into is that developers of these websites do not test with Mozilla/Netscape6 and they use "user-agent" strings to identify the browser. When the server gets a response of "mozilla X.X" from a browser it registers this as Netscape..and doesn't much care what version because the people who put it together do not make any distinction between 4.XX and 6.X .. if it's Netscape then it can handle only blah..blah. So we users who don't have a proprietary browser w/ proprietary tags can't view the site correctly.
Do this as an experiment. Go to www.techweb.com w/ Konqueror...you will see that the page is ALL frelled up. Click the icon with the little hat (to change the user-agent) and change the user-agent to IE 5.5 under Win2k and it will auto reload the page and it comes up PERFECTLY. If you use Netscape 4.X or Mozilla's string..it's still frelled up. It's because they don't test for anything but IE under WINDOWS. Even IE 5.1 on MacOSX..a truely modern browser by your standards can't render a lot of pages because it's not tested for fonts or anything else.
It's to Microsoft's financial advantage to ship an inferior and belated product for a competing platform...
What your saying is bullshit. You condemn the software when the true root of the problem is the so called " web developers " out there..they are the issue. My wife worked for a HUGE web dev firm..and they were so lazy that they really only tested on IE under Windows.
Yes, I agree, the problem is a social phenomenon and not a software limitation. Please note that I did not state the Linux has shitty web browsers (before Konqueror and a usable Mozilla, such was the case). I was simply describing the current situation: many sites don't render properly no matter what web browser you use in Linux. Now try describing this to the infamous "average Windows user". Even if you manage to get past the user-agent strings, you still need to convince them that Linux is a good web browsing platform (many sites don't view correctly although it's not its fault, many plugins don't work, etc.). Good luck...
-> no standard package format
RPM and DEB. A standard doesn't mean just one way of doing things otherwise we would have 1 world language, 1 culture ..etc..etc. The Nazi's tried to make it this way..we stopped them for a reason..
Windows does have a standard package format (albeit its not a very good one). It's a simple EXE. Game patches install from them; critical system patches install from these as well; any software on the platform (whether its freeware, shareware, commercial, GPL, proprietary, etc.) installs using these painless and carefree files. Linux, however, currently lacks something of this sort. Redhat uses RPM, Slackware uses PKG (gzipped tar), Debian uses DEB. Thankfully SuSE decided _not_ have their own package format (the "Yet Another..." method of naming software speaks to this situation in Linux). Yes, RPM is the "standard" (LSB), but what good is it if the other distros don't all use it (e.g. Debian and all the variants such as Progeny, Storm, Corel, etc.)? Some software writers prefer to only distribute source. For example, a new cdrtools version became available recently. No RPM was available of that version, so I compiled my own, thankfully without problems (unlike the previous version). Being the average "Windows user", I would have no clue how to do that. I would probably then wait for the major distros to compile their own RPM's (or DEBs, or PKG, or whatever), if ever, and then download them. The problem is eccentuated even further because the distros aren't compatible (using RPMs from RedHat on a SuSE system could have disastrous results). That's why there need to be at least 3 (more if you want to be serious) RPM versions (just RPM, not mentioning DEB, etc.): Mandrake 7.2, Mandrake 8.0, SuSE 7.1, SuSE 7.2, RedHat 6.2, RedHat 7.x. What if a new version of a standard library breaks current apps (as happened with libc)? All hell breaks loose. SuSE (fortunately) never accepts the lastest and greatest and always tests software before distribution (unlike RedHat...).
-> no standard GUI
KDE and Gnome..they ship with EVERY distribution.."see above reason"
AFAIK, a qt / KDE theme does not change the appearance of gtk apps. It doesn't even change apps like Netscape (which uses Motif). So much for "standard"... which toolkit should I learn? I will soon have to make that decision, God help me...
-> no standard video / audio API (a la DirectX)
OpenGL and ALSA .. they can be used on every distribution..and even Win/Mac can use OpenGL ..wow multi-platform..now THAT's a standard.
Why not use Loki's SDL and OpenAL? What if your card doesn't support OpenGL very well? What if your sound card doesn't have good Alsa support? If you use Microsoft, the questions are superfluous: DirectX or no DirectX. I do, however, agree with you in that OpenGL is definitely the way to go in terms of graphics API's. Just one more question: QT or GTK?
Your arguements are weak and very easy to dismiss..if you want to troll about how GRAND Microsoft software is...please do it in your own forum.
Oh, please: not once did I "praise" Microsoft software. All I did was illustrate the situation, in whatever form (pro / anti Windows) it presented itself. I can tell from your sig (" cat CE|ME|NT|XP > /dev/null ") that you're not the biggest Microsoft fan. My initial response was to the topic stated in the Subject line (Linux for home desktop). As such, it is not up to par with the Windows counterparts. My comments were simply to explain why: it has nothing to do with quality of software. The messages' content has started to fade away from the Subject line. If they continue that way, I will not respond out of respect for the suse-linux-e@suse.com subscribers who do not want YA-FW (Yet Another Flame War). Personal responses are welcome [ noodlez84@earthlink.net ]. -- noodlez: Karol Pietrzak PGP KeyID: 0x3A1446A0
* Karol Pietrzak (noodlez84@earthlink.net) [010903 19:21]: ->On 3 Sep 2001, Ben Rosenberg wrote: -> ->> ->> StarOffice is nowhere near as fast or feature-full as MS Office, ^^^^^^^^^^^^ Yep, you did..and I responded to the featured part. With 7200 and soon to be 10K EIDE drives and 128 DIMM's for $40..I wasn't talking about speed...but features. ->Please note that I also mentioned that StarOffice is not as fast ->as MS Office (at least Office97). As a StarOffice 5.2 user, I ->sincerely hope Sun deals with this (which they said they will). -> -> ->> ->> IE is nowhere near as stable and fails to render all pages ->> ->> perfectly, fonts (even anti-aliased) look like crap compared to ->> ->> the latest WIndows / Mac desktop (my win95 installation has ->> ->> better / more fonts than my SuSE 7.2 installation) -> ->It's to Microsoft's financial advantage to ship an inferior and ->belated product for a competing platform... I don't want Microsoft products for Linux. They over charge for bloatware. Sorry :) -> ->> What your saying is bullshit. You condemn the software when the true ->> root of the problem is the so called " web developers " out there..they ->> are the issue. My wife worked for a HUGE web dev firm..and they were so ->> lazy that they really only tested on IE under Windows. -> ->Yes, I agree, the problem is a social phenomenon and not a ->software limitation. Please note that I did not state the Linux ->has shitty web browsers (before Konqueror and a usable Mozilla, ->such was the case). I was simply describing the current ->situation: many sites don't render properly no matter what web ->browser you use in Linux. The above is a 180 from browsers are crap and can't render pages correctly. Yes it is a social phenomenon..it's people crossing their hearts and in Bill the trust. It sad really. ->Now try describing this to the infamous "average Windows user". ->Even if you manage to get past the user-agent strings, you still ->need to convince them that Linux is a good web browsing platform ->(many sites don't view correctly although it's not its fault, ->many plugins don't work, etc.). Good luck... Well, to tell you the truth. Linux/X based applications will continue to improve and people will catch on as they should. I've heard the "Joe Sixpack User" arguement before. People use to bring this up on the OS/2 lists I was on..it's always something that isn't easy enough for the lowest mentally challenged person that keeps Windows on the desktop and unless we change to become just like the "blinking at 12:00" people we can't possibly "take over the world". I don't care if Linux takes over the world. I just want lazy people out of mine. If people can't take the time to learn something new then they shouldn't. They should stay in their comfort zone and stay out of mine. Simple. -> ->Windows does have a standard package format (albeit its not a ->very good one). It's a simple EXE. Game patches install from ->them; critical system patches install from these as well; any ->software on the platform (whether its freeware, shareware, ->commercial, GPL, proprietary, etc.) installs using these ->painless and carefree files. Ya got me there. I wish Linux had a really nice install routine like Solaris does. Under Solaris you can use pkgadd or for a lot of commercial software ..just click on the installer in their filemanager and a nice Java installer comes up and is truely a nice setup. ->Linux, however, currently lacks ->something of this sort. Redhat uses RPM, Slackware uses PKG ->(gzipped tar), Debian uses DEB. Thankfully SuSE decided _not_ ->have their own package format (the "Yet Another..." method of ->naming software speaks to this situation in Linux). Yes, RPM is ->the "standard" (LSB), but what good is it if the other distros ->don't all use it (e.g. Debian and all the variants such as ->Progeny, Storm, Corel, etc.)? Some software writers prefer to ->only distribute source. For example, a new cdrtools version ->became available recently. No RPM was available of that ->version, so I compiled my own, thankfully without problems ->(unlike the previous version). Being the average "Windows ->user", I would have no clue how to do that. I would probably ->then wait for the major distros to compile their own RPM's (or ->DEBs, or PKG, or whatever), if ever, and then download them. I only count RPM and Deb because they are what the 4 major distributions that a user would encounter are going to use...ie SuSE, RH, Caldera, Mandrake. Storm, Corel and the other debian variants are gone and this still fits my profile of RPM or Deb..same packaging..different label on the distribtution. Most users won't be using slackware which is why I didn't include it. It's a bit to hard for the average user..but I agree there is a 3rd pkg format. As for the software authors who only distribute via source. That is their business..not a " Linux thing "..it's so Solaris, *BSD and other Unices can have access. If the software was just distributed in RPM or deb..it would piss a lot of people off. Yes, in most cases a user should wait for their distribution to make a package or find one that is already made by someone else. In the most radical of cases..read a book or ask someone how to compile the software if they really need it. Finding out how to do something that's more then "point and click " has become a crime in society .. learning use to be praised .. now it is condemned because it's just .. to ..hard. ->The problem is eccentuated even further because the distros ->aren't compatible (using RPMs from RedHat on a SuSE system could ->have disastrous results). That's why there need to be at least ->3 (more if you want to be serious) RPM versions (just RPM, not ->mentioning DEB, etc.): Mandrake 7.2, Mandrake 8.0, SuSE 7.1, ->SuSE 7.2, RedHat 6.2, RedHat 7.x. What if a new version of a ->standard library breaks current apps (as happened with libc)? ->All hell breaks loose. SuSE (fortunately) never accepts the ->lastest and greatest and always tests software before ->distribution (unlike RedHat...). Well..the LSB should fix this. Blame RH for using a "Beta Snapshot" of GCC. That broke a lot of things. As far as directory structure..yes it needs to be fixed...but I have never had unrecoverable " disastrous results " when I installed an RH RPM into a SuSE system as long as I knew that it was 6.2 and that 7.0 broke everything with the compiler change. I'm sorry but computing requires some paying attention to..and most people don't. That's why a company that I use to work for could get $70-100 an hour to reinstall Windows for customers. That's INSANE. It's VCR syndrome...*blink*. ->> -> no standard GUI ->> ->> KDE and Gnome..they ship with EVERY distribution.."see above reason" -> ->AFAIK, a qt / KDE theme does not change the appearance of gtk ->apps. It doesn't even change apps like Netscape (which uses ->Motif). So much for "standard"... which toolkit should I ->learn? I will soon have to make that decision, God help me... The Joe SixPack arguement you started above is irrelevant to this. You are talking about programming...not using a "Standard GUI" .. this is tangent. As I said there are 2 standard GUI's for most Linux distributions..KDE and Gnome. Netscape 4.X should be and will be end of lifed. Netscape 6 uses GTK...and even then that doesn't matter because of the theme park on Netscapes site or x.themes.org. If you skin doesn't match your theme..go find one that does. BTW..I see TONS of apps in Windows that have different looks and you would think they weren't even from the same environment. Window Blinds and many other programs change the look and feel of the GUI and people PAY for them. I've even seen KDE2 and Gnome themes. And direct rip offs of E. Again..this doesn't matter to Joe 6pack. ->Why not use Loki's SDL and OpenAL? What if your card doesn't ->support OpenGL very well? What if your sound card doesn't have ->good Alsa support? If you use Microsoft, the questions are ->superfluous: DirectX or no DirectX. I do, however, agree with ->you in that OpenGL is definitely the way to go in terms of ->graphics API's. Just one more question: QT or GTK? Well, then I would ask you to tell me why my Diamond Viper 550 under 98 on my game box causes Win2K to randomly reboot while watching the news. Guess it's just not supported under DirectX very well. ->Oh, please: not once did I "praise" Microsoft software. All I ->did was illustrate the situation, in whatever form (pro / anti ->Windows) it presented itself. Well, when I hear "Windows 95 does this 10X better then Linux " it ain't a hoorah for Linux..sorry if I miss too your slamming various things and saying the worked so well under Windows as being pro-windows. Now that I know your not I won't dispute it again ;) ->I can tell from your sig (" cat CE|ME|NT|XP > /dev/null ") that ->you're not the biggest Microsoft fan. My initial response was ->to the topic stated in the Subject line (Linux for home ->desktop). As such, it is not up to par with the Windows ->counterparts. My comments were simply to explain why: it has ->nothing to do with quality of software. Yep..I'm not a big fan of Microsoft..but not for the reasons you would think. I personally never had Windows truely fuck up on me...because I read a lot of books on it...and knew how to configure and baby it so that it sung like a bird. I am not fond of them because they make substandard software ware and charge everyone outragous amounts for it. The engulf everything thing they come near..they are a lot like how Robin Williams described men to be .." if they can't fuck it..they'll kill it." If MS can't own it or twist it to their own ends..they try their best to destroy it. I also won't pirate software ..I think people should be paid for their work. With the acception of the 7.0 series..I bought all the boxed editions of SuSE. I have 8 of Loki's software library .etc..etc. Hell I bought StarOffice when it was still commercialware. I don't mind paying for software just not crapware and I won't contribute to the bottomline of a company which is no better then the Mafia. ->The messages' content has started to fade away from the Subject ->line. If they continue that way, I will not respond out of ->respect for the suse-linux-e@suse.com subscribers who do not ->want YA-FW (Yet Another Flame War). This is all I have left to say on the subject. I won't respond to it further. The reason I did in the first place was because I was in a bad mood and I just hate the fact that Windows people tell us WE must change. I went through enough of that crap back in the day when I was using OS/2. People trolled our lists..not saying bad things all the time...sometimes good things with a hint of " it's good..but you still shouldn't trust it..it's just not as good. " If I had a dime for everyone troll I kicked off #os/2 on IRC...I WOULD BE Bill Gates. :) It's just that sometimes this whole comparing Apples to Oranges ..Windows to Linux thing just gets on my last nerve at the bottom of my spine and I snap off something that may have been to harsh...sorry. I promise to be..umm..nicer. ;) -- Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org cat CE|ME|NT|XP > /dev/null
-> no standard package format
RPM and DEB. A standard doesn't mean just one way of doing things otherwise we would have 1 world language, 1 culture ..etc..etc. The Nazi's tried to make it this
way..we stopped them for a
reason..
Windows does have a standard package format (albeit its not a very good one). It's a simple EXE. Game patches install from them; critical system patches install from these as well; any software on the platform (whether its freeware, shareware, commercial, GPL, proprietary, etc.) installs using these painless and carefree files. Linux, however, currently lacks something of this sort. Redhat uses RPM, Slackware uses PKG (gzipped tar), Debian uses DEB. Thankfully SuSE decided _not_ have their own package format (the "Yet Another..." method of naming software speaks to this situation in Linux). Yes, RPM is the "standard" (LSB), but what good is it if the other distros don't all use it (e.g. Debian and all the variants such as Progeny, Storm, Corel, etc.)? Some software writers prefer to only distribute source. For example, a new cdrtools version became available recently. No RPM was available of that version, so I compiled my own, thankfully without problems (unlike the previous version). Being the average "Windows user", I would have no clue how to do that. I would probably then wait for the major distros to compile their own RPM's (or DEBs, or PKG, or whatever), if ever, and then download them.
EXE are not a package format. And it does not only copy files and execute scripts... what if your exe is not what you think and it's just the trojan?
AFAIK, a qt / KDE theme does not change the appearance of gtk apps. It doesn't even change apps like Netscape (which uses Motif).
Why? Should it?
-> no standard video / audio API (a la DirectX)
OpenGL and ALSA .. they can be used on every distribution..and even Win/Mac can use OpenGL ..wow multi-platform..now THAT's a standard.
Why not use Loki's SDL and OpenAL? What if your card doesn't support OpenGL very well? What if your sound card doesn't have good Alsa support? If you use Microsoft, the questions are superfluous: DirectX or no DirectX. I do, however, agree with you in that OpenGL is definitely the way to go in terms of graphics API's. Just one more question: QT or GTK?
There is a problem which makes impossible for you to make your choice? Linux is better because it's not always the same. It's highly customizable. It's fantasy, not just like some GUI decided by someone else and that you cant modify or change or simply turn off.
Il 03:46, lunedì 3 settembre 2001, Karol Pietrzak ha scritto:
Vitaly unconciously raises an interesting point: the Linux Experience _can_ be a good one, provided you _do_ have some Linux experience to begin with, which seems like a contradiction.
It is the same as everything. How can you experience driving a good car without having any experience at all?
Vitaly, you make it seem Linux (particularly SuSE 7.2) is perfectly ready a s a newbie replacement for Windows 9x for home users.
That's true, as far as you are not a player or you need some special software.
The truth, however, could not be further. You specify the many things you had to do to have a truly pleasing "experience" ("putting symlinks for plugins in mozilla, enabling Acrobat Reader plugin in KDE, firing up ide-scsi, downloading windows movie codeks for avifile, configuring modules.conf manually to enable my joystick"), something that the average user would spend dozens of hours trying to figure out, if ever succeeding.
That's the same with windows though. I have been helping a friend installing windows. I was not close to him so he phoned me about 65 times in only one day. If you know nothing, everything is hard. And think, windows is preistalled. If linux would be preinstalled, the problems you are talking about would be solved by the vendor. Just like windows ones!
You are the cream-of-the-crop in the Linux world: all your hardware is supported flawlessly, all the software you need is ported as or has Linux equivalents, etc. Once again, you are the elite.
That does not happen by chance. I always buy supported hardware. Of course if I want to play with windows I wont buy a Macintosh, right?
Most users would not even consider Linux after hearing of its disadvantages as a home OS: StarOffice is nowhere near as fast or feature-full as MS Office,
How many users use half of feature of MS Office? Not one I know.
IE is nowhere near as stable and fails to render all pages perfectly, fonts (even anti-aliased) look like crap compared to the latest WIndows / Mac desktop (my win95 installation has better / more fonts than my SuSE 7.2 installation), no standard package format, no standard GUI, no standard video / audio API (a la DirectX), etc.
I like my standard fonts. Maybe am I blind? :-)
You seem to have taken your near-perfect subjective Linux experiences and carried them over to the objective standpoint, declaring in the meantime that SuSE 7.2 can serve as a replacement for virtually any home desktop.
For me, however, the opposite is true. Win95 is my standard OS (I'm writing this in Pegasus Mail), while SuSE 7.2 remains mainly as a hobby apart from the CD-burning I occasionally do here at home. At school, however, SuSE 7.2 is more prevalent. SuSE 7.2 is the router and file server, as well as the Internet terminal.
Hey Karol, you seem to have taken your near-perfect subjective Windows experiences and carried them over to the objective standpoint, declaring that Windows can serve as a replacement for virtually any home desktop. :-) Linux works better than windows. You know, the coloured screen of death and so on.-) It might depend on what software you want to use, nothing else. Tazio
On 4 Sep 2001, Praise wrote:
Il 03:46, lunedì 3 settembre 2001, Karol Pietrzak ha scritto:
Vitaly unconciously raises an interesting point: the Linux Experience _can_ be a good one, provided you _do_ have some Linux experience to begin with, which seems like a contradiction.
It is the same as everything. How can you experience driving a good car without having any experience at all?
You can't... My point is simply that Vitaly's praise of SuSE 7.2 and its arrival into the desktop is not shared by much of the Linux community. Although Linux has made much progress in the server arena, it has yet to make a significant difference in the desktop market (although the DoJ's move toward StarOffice and Ford's Europe toward moving most desktops to Linux speaks to change that fact soon). Linux truly _is_ "too hard" for the average Windows user. Why change when everything is available, albeit at decreased stability, speed, etc.
The truth, however, could not be further. You specify the many things you had to do to have a truly pleasing "experience" ("putting symlinks for plugins in mozilla, enabling Acrobat Reader plugin in KDE, firing up ide-scsi, downloading windows movie codeks for avifile, configuring modules.conf manually to enable my joystick"), something that the average user would spend dozens of hours trying to figure out, if ever succeeding.
That's the same with windows though. I have been helping a friend installing windows. I was not close to him so he phoned me about 65 times in only one day. If you know nothing, everything is hard. And think, windows is preistalled. If linux would be preinstalled, the problems you are talking about would be solved by the vendor. Just like windows ones!
I agree, Linux's installation process is top-notch. All but the most antique or brand-spanking-new hardware is detected by default without the need to download, compile, and install the newest drivers from the manufacturer's website, all with enough software to leave you installing for hours on end. It's easier than a Windows 9x install...
That does not happen by chance. I always buy supported hardware. Of course if I want to play with windows I wont buy a Macintosh, right?
So do I, but what if I don't get to choose the hardware... and its some bizarre Winmodem or some cheapo builtin sound card. Then, the seemingly easy process of getting sound or connecting to the Internet becomes a venture into the unknown: command line, learning the basic tools, patching a kernel, compiling it, seeking answers if the mentioned process doesn't succeed and trying again until it does. The "regular user" lacks the patience to do this, especially considering that nothing significant will become of it: everything that he / she will be able to do in Linux already is in Windows.
Most users would not even consider Linux after hearing of its disadvantages as a home OS: StarOffice is nowhere near as fast or feature-full as MS Office,
How many users use half of feature of MS Office? Not one I know.
Of course (who the hell ever uses "AutoSummarize"?). But (at least Office 97) it's not as fast, nor as compatible with what the rest of the world uses.
I like my standard fonts. Maybe am I blind? :-)
No, most certainly not. You are satisfied... most are not. Anti-aliasing is a must for many. It's great its been available for quite some time on QT / KDE. It just became available on GTK / glib. The fonts do not however look as good as on the Windows desktop, even if you are using the Microsoft hand-tuned fonts.
Hey Karol, you seem to have taken your near-perfect subjective Windows experiences and carried them over to the objective standpoint, declaring that Windows can serve as a replacement for virtually any home desktop. :-)
Trust me, my Windows 95 experiences are anything but perfect. A ScanDisk session literally corrupted my FAT32 partition (which I do not use for my personal files, thankfully). Linux managed to mount if without fail, enabling me to salvage what I wanted before having to 'mkdosfs /dev/hda3'. At some point in the last year, Windows 95 started crashing more often randomly than usual, leaving me to wonder what the hell was going on... Linux worked wonderfully (Caldera was what I used at that time), forcing me to re-install Win95 every two days (I later discovered it was a fault power supply and processor fan). For another twist, I once accidentally deleted a registry key (something like {BD84B381-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948F534}), which turned out to be part of my scanner driver (!). Re-instaling the scanner drivers didn't work, once again forcing me to re- install all of Windows 95. That's just off the top of my head.
Linux works better than windows. You know, the coloured screen of death and so on.-)
Yes, it does (for the most part). Except "it works better" is not much of a reason for the average windows user to switch, even if it did for that particular case. Moving to Linux the Windows home user looses familiarity, choice of software, etc.
It might depend on what software you want to use, nothing else.
Since most people buy their computers from vendors such as Dell, Gateway, IBM, and Compaq, they do not have much of a choice as to their hardware configurations. The "linux experience" depends on both software and hardware. i.e. everything. Please note that my entire argument was, and still is, that Linux is not quite ready _for the home user_. It is perfectly good (and even superior most of the time) for the server environment because of not only its stability, speed, and security, but also of the apps that run on it (Apache, DB2, Oracle, etc.). It's MHO that SuSE is the best for the server environment because of its ties with the commercial world (IBM and Oracle, as examples of two). That's probably what enabled it to get 45USD million in support money from IBM and Intel. -- noodlez: Karol Pietrzak PGP KeyID: 0x3A1446A0
Il 04:26, martedì 4 settembre 2001, Karol Pietrzak ha scritto:
On 4 Sep 2001, Praise wrote:
Il 03:46, lunedì 3 settembre 2001, Karol Pietrzak ha scritto:
Vitaly unconciously raises an interesting point: the Linux
Experience _can_ be a good one, provided you _do_ have some
Linux experience to begin with, which seems like a contradiction.
It is the same as everything. How can you experience driving a good car without having any experience at all?
You can't... My point is simply that Vitaly's praise of SuSE 7.2 and its arrival into the desktop is not shared by much of the Linux community. Although Linux has made much progress in the server arena, it has yet to make a significant difference in the desktop market (although the DoJ's move toward StarOffice and Ford's Europe toward moving most desktops to Linux speaks to change that fact soon). Linux truly _is_ "too hard" for the average Windows user. Why change when everything is available, albeit at decreased stability, speed, etc.
I told you it's false. Installing linux might be too hard. Installing windows just the same. And hey, if you can read, you will never have unsolvable problem with Linux. But you always have unsovable ones with windows. You look like you have 0 experience about Windows.
The truth, however, could not be further. You specify the many things you had to do to have a truly pleasing "experience" ("putting symlinks for plugins in mozilla, enabling Acrobat Reader plugin in KDE, firing up ide-scsi, downloading windows movie codeks for avifile, configuring modules.conf manually to enable my joystick"), something that the average user would spend dozens of hours trying to figure out, if ever succeeding.
That's the same with windows though. I have been helping a friend installing windows. I was not
close to him so he phoned me about
65 times in only one day. If you know nothing, everything is hard. And think, windows is preistalled. If linux would be preinstalled, the problems you are talking about would be solved by the vendor. Just like windows ones!
I agree, Linux's installation process is top-notch. All but the most antique or brand-spanking-new hardware is detected by default without the need to download, compile, and install the newest drivers from the manufacturer's website, all with enough software to leave you installing for hours on end. It's easier than a Windows 9x install...
That does not happen by chance. I always buy supported hardware. Of course if I want to play with windows I wont buy a Macintosh, right?
So do I, but what if I don't get to choose the hardware... and its some bizarre Winmodem or some cheapo builtin sound card. Then, the seemingly easy process of getting sound or connecting to the Internet becomes a venture into the unknown: command line, learning the basic tools, patching a kernel, compiling it, seeking answers if the mentioned process doesn't succeed and trying again until it does. The "regular user" lacks the patience to do this, especially considering that nothing significa nt will become of it: everything that he / she will be able to do in Linux already is in Windows.
There is no point here. If you use a system you have to use the hardware for the system. Full stop. There is no kernel patch for running windows on a Macintosh, right?
Most users would not even consider Linux after hearing of its disadvantages as a home OS: StarOffice is nowhere near as fast or feature-full as MS Office,
How many users use half of feature of MS Office? Not one I know.
Of course (who the hell ever uses "AutoSummarize"?). But (at least Office 97) it's not as fast, nor as compatible with what the rest of the world uses.
You are saying that Office 97 is not as fast nor compatible with what the rest of the world uses? I knew that.-)
I like my standard fonts. Maybe am I blind? :-)
No, most certainly not. You are satisfied... most are not. Anti-aliasing is a must for many. It's great its been available for quite some time on QT / KDE. It just became available on GTK / glib. The fonts do not however look as good as on the Windows desktop, even if you are using the Microsoft hand-tuned fonts.
I have tons of ttf fonts. Honestly I like them in Kde2. More than in the windows GUI.
Hey Karol, you seem to have taken your near-perfect subjective Windows experiences and carried them over to the objective standpoint, declaring that Windows can serve as a replacement for virtually any home desktop.
:-)
Trust me, my Windows 95 experiences are anything but perfect. A ScanDisk session literally corrupted my FAT32 partition (which I do not use for my personal files, thankfully). Linux managed to mount if without fail, enabling me to salvage what I wanted
before having to 'mkdosfs /dev/hda3'. At some point in the last year, Windows 95 started crashing more often randomly than usual, leaving me to wonder what the hell was going on... Linux worked wonderfully (Caldera was what I used at that time), forcing me to re-install Win95 every two days (I later discovered it was a fault power supply and processor fan). For another twist, I once accidentally deleted a registry key (something like {BD84B381-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948F534}), which turned out to be part of my scanner driver (!). Re-instaling the scanner drivers didn't work, once again forcing me to re- install all of Windows 95. That's just off the top of my head.
Linux works better than windows. You know, the coloured screen of death and so on.-)
Yes, it does (for the most part). Except "it works better" is not much of a reason for the average windows user to switch, even if it did for that particular case. Moving to Linux the Windows home user looses familiarity, choice of software, etc.
It works better, it's cheaper, you have more choice of hardware (you can run it on an old PC). The main reason why a home user do not use linux it's because it's not preinstalled.
It might depend on what software you want to use, nothing else.
Since most people buy their computers from vendors such as Dell, Gateway, IBM, and Compaq, they do not have much of a choice as to their hardware configurations. The "linux experience" depends on both software and hardware. i.e. everything.
Please note that my entire arg ument was, and still is, that Linux is not quite ready _for the home user_. It is perfectly good (and even superior most of the time) for the server environment because of not only its stability, speed, and security, but also of the apps that run on it (Apache, DB2, Oracle, etc.). It's MHO that SuSE is the best for the server environment because of its ties with the commercial world (IBM and Oracle, as examples of two). That's probably what enabled it to get 45USD million in support money from IBM and Intel.
The only thing a home user could miss is "games". But Linux is perfectly ready to be used in an standard Office, IMHO. Tazio
Dear all!
i just decided to share some of my thoughts with everyone.
The reason i use linux (SuSE 7.2 of cource) at home is that i take
in developing some thngs for Unix platform, and i noticed that i did not load my Win2000 for a long time. (last time i booted in it i found
sound mysteroiusly dissapered there :-) ). By this time i found almost all Linux replacements of the things i used to in Win32, such as:
MS-Windows desktop --> KDE MS-Office --> StarOffice, WinAmp + WMP -> XMMS Explorer --> Mozilla Windows Commander --> zsh command line :-) MSDev Studio --> KDev and VSlick editor + DDD.
and etc, not to mention that such things as Matlab, Corel suite, Quake, and etc, are simply ported to linux and look and feel the same.
I admired to see that on my home PC, Quake3 in Win2000 and Linux runs with EQUAL FPS. i also managed to configure my USB Joystick to work with it (just to see if it works)
But while setting up my home desktop enviroment, i had to do much of
things manually, (putting symlinks for plugins in mozilla, enabling Acrobat Reader
in KDE, firing up ide-scsi, downloading windows movie codeks for avifile, configuring modules.conf manually to enable my joystick, and many more)
if a mean home user, used to 'Plug and Pray' system would know that must do all this things, he will never buy it (even comparing a 30$ for 3CD of various FREE soft with ~100$ just for OS.)
I admire the SuSE develper's work, most packages come already pre-configured. Comparing to other distributions, i chose this one, because of numerous small features, that are done smarter than in oother systems.
THANK YOU GUYS! IF ONLY PIZZA DELIVERED FROM RUSSIA WOULD NOT GET COLD, I WOULD SENT IT TO YOU, REALLY!
Linux celebrated 10year anniversary with great results, and more are to be archived. This is not a point to stop. Linux have all chances to become the most Plug-and-Playable system ever, and for this we should work together.
A system will become a user-friendly if, and only if, we, (i.e. users) will take a major part in building it. This means not urgent studying C/C++ and fixing the things we want -- i think the developers will also like this, but first of all -- EXPRESSING THE THINGS WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN OUR SYSTEM.
KDE wishlist is fat anough already, but this about only one susbsytem.
The OS (like SuSE Linux) is a set of such subsystems, and most od them are doubling each other in functionality. It is good, cause it gives a freedom of choise. But this sub-systems must be interconnected, at least in the way it is in SuSE. we, users, must demand more features that we would like to see in OS package!
Just do not be shy to demand the features you want! demand pre-configured plugins in Mozilla, demand pre-installed codeks for movies demand auto loading and configuring kernel modules on USB device
demand other behavior of right-mouse-button click and window focus
demand more features for YAST[2] And when the feature you requested appears in the next release of SuSE (or even in YOU ) -- then, put your name in Open Enviromnt buiders
Hi, Vitaly:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about Linux. I love it. <ROTFLMAO>
Regards,
Glenn
Glenn Williams - n0hn@abq-nm.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Vitaly Shishakov
-- you will deserve it!
in the coming Linux decade must become the most USER_FRIENDLY OS! And we (i.e. users) will do it!
PS: Once MS made a great work with it's users and beta-testers to build that win'95 enviroment we all familiar with. Now MS make a grave for themselves with that activation feature, and WE must use it to establish the Open Standards not only in Software enviroment, but in our common life too.
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participants (11)
-
Anders Johansson -
Ben Rosenberg -
Bruce Marshall -
Cliff Sarginson -
Glenn Williams -
Karol Pietrzak -
Martin Webster -
Praise -
StarTux -
Tracer Bullet -
Vitaly Shishakov