On Tue, 2002-10-29 at 19:04, Rowan Reid wrote:

every revision that comes out. Windows 95 was windows 95 for almost 4 plus years with no updates, few patchs maybe. For some reason with linux with every new version of gnome or KDE we run to upgrade then run around crying when our old programs don’t work and all the links to file libraries have been changed. If you choose not to upgrade all the new

Actually, there were 4 versions of windows '95 two were 16bit based and two where 32bit based. Which is why may programs won't run on the first two versions of windows '95. Just as XP has a 32bit, and will have a 64bit...multiple versions of that, also (3 versions of '98, too, BTW). It's just that I think Linux people are more excited for the improvements (hey, many of us are computer geeks ;^) and rush to try it before the bugs are worked out...or to help make it better. Plus Linux distros advertise their updates and don't try to lie to you by saying SuSE 8.1 on the box but putting 8.1, 8.1a, 8.1b, or 8.1c inside the box (unlike windows '95 ;^) of which some have gcc 2.95 and others 3.2 ...it's thankfully not like that, they mearly tell it how it is, which I like. sorry, just had to add my 2c.

john B wrote:

Hey...remember that the KISS principle and the saying 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' , go hand in hand, together. Sure, *all* the *nix distros have their problems, but for a ten year old on the block, it's doing a damn fine job. It's not worth bitchin' and moanin' about something, because that won't help make it any better. If you didn't want to spend the money and jump on the bandwagon so quickly to have 8.1, then you should have waited a little while and watched.

Well, I let 8.0 slide past, because of the common "dot-oh" troubles. But basically, when you look at one of these lists, it pretty much all looks the same. I mean, I put 6.4 I think it was, or maybe 6.2 on my system, the first Suse after using Slackware for 4 years. It was so easy to install, and a few tweaks, and that was it. Maybe I shouls still be using it! But I do need more recent software so... I just mean it's hard to tell from the problems on the list if the distro is going to be good or bad for me, because the fact is an OS is horribly complex, and there are a million variables that are different for every installation.

You pulled a 'windows user' by going out and buying the latest and greatest, before maybe waiting to see what happens to others (who are 'willing' to test the newest stuff out). Look at all the people with XPee who got the SP1, and are now having even *more* problems with it.

I have overheard horrible things in the local computer shop about XP. Perhaps my biggest mistake is trying to set up 8.1 at work, before spending the time at home fiddling with it in a relaxed atmosphere, to see if I want to go through with it at work, where I have the pressure to get it working as quick as possible.

So, instead of bitching, either do or don't take the time to let the people at SuSE know what's going on. After all, you spent the time writing up this long post, you could have used the time to make as long a post to SuSE. Right?

Ok, you've been civil in your response, critical but civil, so that's Ok. I will not give up on this 8.1. (It is really damned lovely looking, you know, I should have at least put that positive note in my OP.) So I will re-examine each of my troubles, and interact with Suse.

What you did here was sort of like the little spoiled kid who gets a brand-new bike, but doesn't want to take it out on any dirt trails and maybe get it dirty or break something, so cries to daddy that he wants *another* bike to do that kind of stuff with. Ya see what I'm tryin' to say here? I don't mean it to sound like I'm raggin' on you hard, but I am raggin' a little bit about how you went about making this post sound.

Ok. I'll try to keep it to single issues, and as objective as possible. I blew it because I was stressed at work, and it's not good to test a new Linux distro in that environment, I think. I should have known that, as I've gone through this frustration in the last, only to get it all worked out in the end. Good day. -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@earthlink.net Suse 7.3 Linux 2.4.10

Damon Register wrote:

john B wrote:

...

On Tuesday 29 October 2002 19:11, Chris Carlen wrote:

...

months when I have some more time. But I have blown several days without acheiving even a modicum of useability out of this thing, uncovering nothing but quirks and bugs, that I just can't take it anymore.

<snip>

job. It's not worth bitchin' and moanin' about something, because that won't help make it any better. If you didn't want to spend the money and jump on

Certainly there will be those who disagree but I have no doubt that this is one of the reasons why Linux isn't any better off than it is. Too many times it seems that the Linux community is so in love with their OS that they refuse to see the problems and will jump all over anyone who does complain. Perhaps one day when the Linux community finally admits the problems, it will be the first step on the road to recovery. Fortunately there are some really great people in this group who do help with real solutions to problems. Thanks to all of you.

Damon Register

That's why I made it very clear that my complaint was coming from a "business user." It was almost intended to be a preview of what's to come when Linux starts being deployed in pilot programs in corporations. I have been a home user of Linux for a long time, but today I wear two hats: home user, and business user. The demands are *very* different for the two users. That can be seen quite clearly simply from the prices I pay. I am willing to pay for Suse professional , and StarOffice rather than OpenOffice at work, because I expect that my money will get me something that is useable out of the box. At home it is different, I use OpenOffice, and I may take home the CDs for Suse from work, but leave the manuals at work. I pay at work, and get a free ride at home. My expectations differ accordingly. Most importantly, the generally accepted reality that using Linux involves "customization" (translation--a lot of fixing it up before you can use it) is really very similar to the conditioning that we perceive in Windows users, that when it crashes or does something stupid, they just re-boot or re-install, and never question if this is right or not. Thus we are conditioned to accept the need to a considerable amount of "customization." But this is a problem for business users, who will expect to have it working, now! They will also be looking for any excuse to crawl back to their comfortable world of Windows, in which the investment of time is more like a using a credit card, compared to the initial but one-time high capital cost (in time) of setting up a Linux box. Their Windows works quite well out of the box, but then gets flaky and costs them in the long term. Thus, they can turn a blind eye to these long term costs(the conditioning), but when hit with the initial (time) investment to "customize" a Linux box, they will perceive that to mean sub-standard quality, which is what they fail to perceive with Windows because it is chronic rather than acute in that case. It is for this reason that I believe that Linux must present to the potential business user a *disproportionately* better computing experience, in order to ward off the excuses to run back to Windows. Thus, things like the file manager (Konqueror) must be nothing short of perfect. Now I doubt there is anyone here who can honestly say that Konqueror is even remotely as stable as Windows Explorer. For example, just take the Konqueror that comes with Suse 8.1, click the little "wrench" icon in the sidebar, then click some of the menu items (toward the bottom--I don't have 8.1 running right now so I can't describe exactly). Poof! I discovered this crash within *minutes* of my first user log-in to Suse 8.1! That is very unfortunate, and a very grave danger for the acceptibility and staying power in the hands of those critical initial pilot users of the Linux desktop. Can anybody tell me of an obvious and repeatable crash mode such as this in the Windows Explorer of Windows 2000 or NT? Perhaps if you can't crash Konqueror like this in other versions of Suse, you have still seen the crashes that come when you log out of X to a text console. Or you have seen KDE get confused and try to start up programs that were closed in the last session, the next time you log in. A lot of goofy quirks like this. Many of them are certainly livable. To us. But not to potential converts from Windows to Linux in the business desktop environment. The fact is that Windows has improved dramatically in stability over the years, and I am considering here only the NT class Windows, which are the only ones that are even considerable for business use by any sane human. (Still not absolutely sane, but relatively sane. Heh heh.) It is for that reason that the challenge for Linux to take hold in the desktop is a formidable one. And it is perhaps one of the reasons why people haven't even looked at Linux until feeling the heavy hand of MS's new licensing financial prison sentences. Finally, the business user will not tolerate the response to his complaints that sounds like what we all know is commonplace out there in the newsgroups (though the discussion on this subject within this list has been downright civil and admirable). You know, the "RTFM" attitude. That is another indirect intention of my letter. We have to respond to this kind of frustration and troubles with professionalism. From what I've seen so far here, I think there is great hope! Good day. -- ____________________________________ Christopher R. Carlen Principal Laser/Optical Technologist Sandia National Laboratories CA USA crcarle@sandia.gov

On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 21:52:14 -0400 "Donavan Pantke" <avatar@dcr.net> wrote:

On Tuesday 29 October 2002 20:11, Chris Carlen wrote: -- snip

...

Well, I have spent an afternoon wasting time describing the problems, and finding more problems at such a high rate [...]

<soapbox> I'm sure that the KDE and SuSE folks would love to hear these misc. bug reports and such. Perhaps the vast majority of us linux users out there spend so much troubleshooting time in man pages or google, that many haven't properly tested/commented on the SuSE helpcenter. And that, of course, would hinder SuSE in it's attempts to improve it. The KDE problems obviously need to be looked that, and perhaps with a bug report to SuSE and so forth a patched KDEbase will come out that addresses these issues. I agree with the OpenOffice rant, it's a pretty good app, but I've run into a good deal of issues with how it operates. Perhaps around 1.5 or 2.1 it'll be polished up good enough to be a serious competetor to M$ Office. My advice would be to snip up your post and the different parts to SuSE, KDE, and OpenOffice, and see what comes of it. Most likely updated RPMS in a couple of weeks, I'd hope. Rants are fine, but SuSE 8.2 won't be any better if the rants aren't given to the people that need them.

From that point, I admit to a certain glee when I can go for three or four days of actual system usage (i.e., desktop stuff with word processor, drawing, and other office tools) without anything ugly or show-stopping happening. However, that glee is not from accomplishment, since I know that any success (or failure to fail) is not an accomplishment. Instead, it is merely a dodging of the bullet or a case of being temporarily overlooked by the demons and malevolent spirits

<counter-rant> I'm probably not speaking for ALL the people who don't write bug reports, but I'm speaking for me, and I suspect for quite a *bunch* of people. I don't write bug reports. I'm hoping my 8.1 will arrive soon, but I still have dozens of things that are broken from 8.0, and that's been almost a year, hasn't it? So why am I such a selfish bastard, and where are all the bug reports? My complete and well-considered answer is "How the f*** would I know?" I've been groping in the dark, off and on, with Linux (almost all with SuSE) for a few years. I'm about 10,000% ahead of where I was when I started, and that only means that I've got "slightly-better- than-newbie" understanding. So what?.... I'm lazy or stupid. Well, the so-what is that when something goes wrong, I have absolutely zero confidence in ANY guess I could make about which of 1600 things might be wrong, but I have about 98% confidence that it must be operator error, on my part. I'm never going to write a bug report, because every system that accepts bug reports has a FAQ that says: 1) make sure that this is a real bug 2) make sure that this is a bug with just/only our piece of the software jungle, and not one of the other 1600 things that might be broken - in the operating system kernel, - in modules you might have loaded, or modules you might not have known you should have loaded, or modules you thought were loaded, but have since been unloaded by some other software that you installed, or - repeat the above paragraph, but substitute the word "library" for every occurrence of "module" or - repeat the above paragraph, but substitute the word "dependency" for every occurrence of "module" or "library", or - repeat the above paragraph, but substitute the word "config file" for every occurrence of "module" or ... 3) make sure it's not operator error or setup/config error, all of which is explained somewhere else... well, actually in 1600 "somewhere elses", most of which must be approached/edited/configured in a certain order, which is "we could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you". So, I've never reached the point where I think anything is a bug, until after a bunch of people have claimed the same "bug" on the mailing list, and NOT been shouted down as doofuses who should have RTFM'd a little better. (Never mind that I don't seem to HAVE the FM or the help working for most apps...) So, when those people have already said my problem (if I've actually got the same problem and am not just indulging in wishful thinking) is a bug, well the bug has been reported, and they don't need my tentative duplicate report to clutter the system. Hell, if I get an error message that says: "Segmentation fault, the program is badly broken, please send the log file to this URL....", I still figure it's probably because I didn't configure something correctly, and not an actual bug. My experience with Linux is that I load the new distribution (usually clean, because I've learned to not trust upgrades...). Then, I set about making the current X-dressing (KDE or GNOME or some less integrated flavor-of-the-month) look and work approximately the way I want, so that it won't annoy me too much when I begin trying to: a) fix things that are broken/misconfigured from the initial installation b) get some actual work done. that ARE going to get me as soon as I blink. Mostly, I don't do any gaming, partly from a relative lack of interest, and partly because I've never gotten 3D acceleration to work without breaking something that I need for work. Sometimes I can get my Microsoft joystick to work, but usually not at the same time that 3D video acceleration is working... I'm not an MP3 user, but I occasionally listen to audio CDs... when that's working, but I consider it largely a matter of dumb luck if I plug a CD in, and sound comes out my speakers. Next week, it won't happen that way, even though I *think* that I haven't touched (well, not deliberately) any configuration files this week. Every time I install a new distro, either CD audio or system sounds is broken for a month or three. The system sounds thing doesn't bother me much, because the thrill of having my opening and closing windows make stupid star-treck or jungle sounds, kinda wore off in the first five minutes. There was a time that I actually was able to play a DVD with tolerable sound, and with a picture that was mostly steady, and mostly synchronized with that sound... but it's been a while. Maybe I'll try again, when/if I reach that priority in my futzing schedule. I'm joking. It's not scheduled. When I have to budget my "free" time between fixing broken work tools or fixing broken play toys, well, the work stuff gets to function slightly more than the play stuff. So, anyway, that's why you'll never see a bug report with my name on it. I wouldn't even begin to know how to tell that a bug -- if it actually was a bug -- should be reported to the app creators, or to the X project, or to the KDE people... or ... to SuSE.

From my perspective, it's far better that I don't clog the system with amateurish/naive attempts.

Well, nobody read this far, and it's past my bed-time, so </counter-rant> G'night all. /kevin OH! wait. I almost forgot... please don't make excuses for OpenOffice, and how it's the early release. It isn't. It's the same code that is in StarOffice 6.x. When people are using tools for years that have not yet reached release 1.0, then something that is at release 6 is quite mature. - -

Hi, <FLAME SHIELD ON> <NO OFFENCE INTENDED> I am quite amazed at the amount of negativity on this list specifically towards SuSE as a distribution. I have been using SuSE since 7.0 and I never experience 1/10 the issues that seem to crop up on this list, why? Quite simply put, I use the tools that SuSE has provided me. I use YOU and YAST2, not because I cannot tinker with the system, but because I choose ease of use and configuration over and above manual tweaking. My fiancee has just switched over to SuSE 8.0, I showed her the basics of Linux and then showed her how to use YAST. She has never had a system crash, and she has on numerous occasions installed software that she needed... ...from the SuSE CDs and from external sources. I have switched a sales person (also a friend of mine) to SuSE 8.0, just this weekend we installed Ximian Desktop on Top of Gnome on Top of SuSE 8.0. He needed the full functionality of Ximian Evolution and the Palm Conduits... ...and so we switched him because it works exceptionally well on Ximian Desktop. I may not have the latest Gnome, or even the latest KDE... ...but what I have on my machine is stable and working. My advise to you all, if you want to use apt-get and such like, then be prepared to have more bugs then an ant hill. For years we all (maybe not all) used microsoft WinBlows Installer and Add Remove/Programs, why? Because it was a tool provided by MicroSnot to install software on the machine... ...so why then do you want to use third party tools that have not been developed for one distribution. You chose SuSE as your distribution (for whatever reasons) and SuSE have spent countless man hours developing tools for their distribution that works (Thanks SuSE), why then do you not use these tools and then complain when the stuff doesn't work. Currently my company is going through a trial period of switching users over to Linux as a Desktop, we are using SuSE because myself and two other technical staff have been using it at this company for over a year. These individuals are all ex MicroSnot users who are not very technical, yet they use their SuSE machines more effectively then they ever used the WinBlows machines. They have been taught to use the tools provided and have done so on numerous occassions. Why does SuSE take time to release certain 'new' software... ...because they test it on their distribution first and then release it. Yes there are bugs, everything that is developed by humans has bugs... ...only God is perfect. So if you are so unhappy with SuSE, then switch back to another distribution... ...don't blame SuSE for issues that you have created by not using the tools that are provided. If you want to gamble with non-SuSE tools... ...DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! SuSE: THANK YOU FOR THE BEST LINUX EXPERIENCES I HAVE EVER HAD. KEEP UP THE DAMN FINE WORK!!! </NO OFFENCE INTENDED> <FLAME SHIELD OFF> Regards Q On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 08:08, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 02.49, KMcLauchlan wrote:

...

From my perspective, it's far better that I don't clog the system with amateurish/naive attempts.

This point I strongly disagree with. I've upgraded two of my three machines now to 8.1, and so far the only problem I've seen is in the upgrade of cyrus-imap (a real PITA, I can tell you, but I managed to get it to work in the end :), but that's not the point. It is very far from the point.

If linux is ever going to make it to the home user's desktop it needs to be usable even to the people who don't know what you're doing (and no Kevin, I'm not saying you're one of them). So even clueless bug reports should be welcomed, in fact encouraged, because it should not be possible for a user *who isn't running as root* to mess up his system. Mess up his user config, sure, but not his system.

Having said that, I can understand why places like developer's mailing lists and other are so careful about what gets posted as bugs. There needs to be some sort of middle ground, a place where even newbies can "clog the system with amateurish/naive attempts" and get a useful answer. If it then turns out to be a valid bug, it could be forwarded to the relevant places.

On lists like SLE I think a lot gets answered. But there are reasons why not everything can get an answer. It's virtually impossible, for instance, to understand why another person's system is crashing, when your own system doesn't crash even if you do exactly what the other person *says* he does. Some things just can't be fixed 'remotely'.

Anders

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

Sorry misunderstading... ...this wasn't a reply to your post. This is a reply to the general thread, my apologies for offending anyone. This is a general reply. Sorry again! Q On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 08:28, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 07.27, Quinton Delpeche wrote:

...

Hi,

<FLAME SHIELD ON> <NO OFFENCE INTENDED> <snip rant>

I'm not sure why you felt that was a reply to my post. I don't think I've been critical towards SuSE

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On 30 Oct 2002, Quinton Delpeche wrote:

I am quite amazed at the amount of negativity on this list specifically towards SuSE as a distribution.

I have been using SuSE since 7.0 and I never experience 1/10 the issues that seem to crop up on this list, why?

No idea. But our problems are real. I love SuSE and I am sticking with it. And I recommend it to other people. But that doesn't mean the problems I've experienced aren't real. They are. Pretending they're not doesn't make them go away. Preston

Donavan Pantke wrote:

I'm sure that the KDE and SuSE folks would love to hear these misc. bug reports and such. Perhaps the vast majority of us linux users out there spend so much troubleshooting time in man pages or google, that many haven't properly tested/commented on the SuSE helpcenter. And that, of course, would hinder SuSE in it's attempts to improve it. The KDE problems obviously need to be looked that, and perhaps with a bug report to SuSE and so forth a patched KDEbase will come out that addresses these issues.

I won't be giving up as my title may have suggested. That was emotion, not reasonableness. I appreciate your not flaming me for it. To your civil response I will offer that I will take all of my issues to Suse, and make them known in a polite manner. I have a strong feeling for the way professional software should work. I really want Linux to kick the butt off MS. So I will continue using it, and communicating what needs to be improved. In the process I might blow off now and then.

I agree with the OpenOffice rant, it's a pretty good app, but I've run into a good deal of issues with how it operates. Perhaps around 1.5 or 2.1 it'll be polished up good enough to be a serious competetor to M$ Office.

There are two aspects to the problems with OOo. One is the default installation usually doesn't look too good, particularly with the fonts, in stock Suse, and I've seen problems in Mandrake. Most of this can be fixed with considerable manual font configuration tweaking. Unfortunately, the process I went through to make my Suse 7.3 font installation just the way I wanted it was so involved, that I just haven't found the time to try to communicate it. And there are plenty of HOWTOs out there that say what I would say anyway, after all, that's how I learned to twiddle the fonts. But I also hacked pretty deeply into the config files of OOo, and there isn't much info about that out there on the net. The biggest improvement is had by using freetype 2.0.9 with the bytecode interpreter enabled, which seems to be in Suse 8.1. The other issue is general bugs, about which I have spent considerable time communicating with OpenOffice.org. For the next few months I'm stressed with a college course in addition to my work. After that I'll try to submit more issues to help them get it better.

My advice would be to snip up your post and the different parts to SuSE, KDE, and OpenOffice, and see what comes of it. Most likely updated RPMS in a couple of weeks, I'd hope. Rants are fine, but SuSE 8.2 won't be any better if the rants aren't given to the people that need them.

Indeed. I will keep working on 8.1, but at home where I can take my time. I will submit issues to Suse.

And, honestly, if you want something that works all around as an OS out of the box, I'd have to say at this point that Mac OSX 10.2 is very polished and complete. When the linux community comes out with a GUI that's as seamless and polished as Aqua is, M$ won't be the richest company in existence for long. They're close already, it's just a matter of time. </soapbox>

I'm sure OSX is very respectable, but I have a philosophical attachment to Linux. I feel very strongly about it, and want very much for it to become a mainstream desktop OS, for the good of all people who want freedom of choice in how they compute. Perhaps I'm a bit too attached to this vision, and it get's me upset when I see that there are still a lot of rough edges on this system. Good day, and thank you for your comments. -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@earthlink.net Suse 7.3 Linux 2.4.10

Apart from GUI, Linux beats Windows in technical superiority in every respect. But look it only has a 3% market share!

That is why we, Linux users, are so special folkz! :) -- Microsoft Windows users should be covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act!!! Try Linux and you'll understand why...

On Tuesday 29 October 2002 21:11, gilson redrick wrote:

On Tuesday, 29 October 2002 20:11, Chris Carlen wrote:

...

1. Having two konqueror windows open in 8.1: Copy file in one window doesn't make the paste option become available in the other window. This used to be so.

I rarely use Konqueror, let alone two windows simultaneously, but the above made me try it. I had never had the need to copy and paste. Guess what! I'm using 7.3 and can't do it either!

Works fine for me with 8.0. John

Patrick wrote:

Well, I have 8.0 with 3.0.4 installed and I can't do it from two different Konqs up at once. I can copy from one konq, but it has "paste" ghosted in the other konq window. Thing is, I don't know why someone would really want to do this? When you can go to the menu and split your konq window into as many divisions as you want and copy and paste or drag & drop all you want from one Konq window! Granted, I think you should be able to copy from one and paste in another, but I have never had a need to do that since using SuSE.

Patrick

I don't like the fact that the directory tree has to be multiplexed between the two views in Konqueror. So I like having two views, each with their own dir tree. Thus, I have become accustomed to using the two side-by-sdie Konqs. for several years now. It's quite difficult for us to imagine why others do the same operations quite different than us. That is Ok. It's just like the reason we have favorite colors. Sometimes, there is no reason. -- ____________________________________ Christopher R. Carlen Principal Laser/Optical Technologist Sandia National Laboratories CA USA crcarle@sandia.gov

gilson redrick wrote:

On Tuesday, 29 October 2002 20:11, Chris Carlen wrote:

...

1. Having two konqueror windows open in 8.1: Copy file in one window doesn't make the paste option become available in the other window. This used to be so.

SuSE 8.1, updated to KDE 3.0.4 through YOU. The problem occures when I am trying to copy-paste between two different instances of Konqueror, i.e. if I open two Konqueror windows by clicking on the "home" icon twice. The problem does not occure if I do copy-paste between two windows of the same instance of Konqueror: start the program by clicking on the "home" icon, then press CTRL-N to open a new window. Copy-paste between the windows work. That's why I didn't notice this problem before, because I typically use Ctrl-N to span new windows. Regards, Serguei

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 04:19, Patrick wrote:

...

...

...

1. Having two konqueror windows open in 8.1: Copy file in one window doesn't make the paste option become available in the other window. This used to be so.

Yes, now this works quite well for me also opening up multiple Konq windows with Ctrl-N. I still don't understand the need to have multiple Konq windows up though with the "split" capabilities it has.

Patrick

I agree, and even advocate using command line for such stuff. There are however exceptions, for example, when copying files from a CDROM: a single click will mount the disk and open it in Konqueror, and you can copy-paste files to another Konqueror window. Now, that's exactly how I used to do my copy-paste. Apparently, if I already have a running instance of Konqueror, when I click on CDROM icon, the window that opens is another window of the running instance, not a separate instance. So, copy-paste becomes possible between the CDROM window and the window that has already been opened. Somebody at KDE - or SuSE - has given it thought. In any case, if someone wants to have copy-paste enabled between any of Konqueror windows on their desktop, the desired command line switch must be somewhere around that cdrom icon. This switch can be used in other menu/panel entries calling Konqueror. Regards, Serguei

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 05:06, Donavan Pantke wrote:

You know, has anyone ever actually done a ps -auxf or similar, and see if these other windows are, in fact, child processes from the main one that got started? That could easily explain the problem: copy-paste would only work between members of the process group.

I knew there must be correct terms for this. You fit the explanation in one sentence. It is easy to notice that a large number of problems users experience are described, and often solved, in this sort of empirical manner. I wonder sometimes if people who program for Linux/KDE actually understand what's being discussed. I'd venture to say that much of the linux user angst is created by users' inability to integrate their empirical knowledge. I've been using linux since SuSE 5-something, 5.3 I think. I've learned a lot. But without a proper framework it all looks just a collection of ad hoc pieces of information. Many people say that linux should win desktop from the other os, and this would become possible when users would not need to know what child processes are. Maybe one day it will happen. But as it is, linux is used, managed and advocated by people who are commonly referred to as "geeks". Geeks may share the belief that linux is the best and willing to spend a lot of time tinkering with it, but not all of them went to programming college or professionally wrote in C for many years. Many users actually seem to be ashamed of demanding certain features/fixes for themeselves, they demand it on behalf of joe sixpack or business production environment. I think this often happens because of lack of knowledge. Now look at this again: "copy-paste would only work between members of the process group". It already looks a fraction of a problem it seemed to be. This may be turned into a meaningful bug report or a feature request. Or, it can safely be lived with. In short, I think SuSE should put more effort at consolidating their geeky consumer base, in particular, providing more abstract, theoretical info on how things work. How do you call what. How it all is woven together. How to investigate a bug and submit a comprehensive bug report. What can developers do for you and what they can't. As it is, most documentation deals with how to set up and use the various system components. But it provides very little in the way of background necessary to, for example, talk to developers without blushing. An amaising feature of linux is that the developers are at arm's lenth - you can report a bug, see it getting fixed, and the fix find its way back to your computer. What commercial software development houses can boast such incredible flexibility and pace? Yet, this resource is incredibly underused because users don't know how to articulate various problems they are experiencing. Regards, Serguei

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 05:45, Serguei Chabanov [...]

It is easy to notice that a large number of problems users experience are described, and often solved, in this sort of empirical manner. I wonder sometimes if people who program for Linux/KDE actually understand what's being discussed.

I'd venture to say that much of the linux user angst is created by users' inability to integrate their empirical knowledge. I've been using linux since SuSE 5-something, 5.3 I think. I've learned a lot. But without a proper framework it all looks just a collection of ad hoc pieces of information.

Exactly. Before you learn it, or after you learn it, it all seems to be in separate little cubby-holes, with each bit of info, or each set of instructions, or each "fix" being equal to all others, and unconnected. No heirarchy. No way to read a message or a FAQ and be able to say: "This piece of information from 1997 is still as true and valid and valuable as it was when it was written." versus "This piece of information was valid in June and July 1997, but only for the then- current Mandrake release, and was obsoleted by a kernel patch from Aug 4, 1997... but the kernel patch was never publicly described in words that relate to this information, but rather in obscure behind-the-scenes terms that mean something to kernel developers."

Many people say that linux should win desktop from the other os, and this would become possible when users would not need to know what child processes are. Maybe one day it will happen. But as it is, linux is used, managed and advocated by people who are commonly referred to as "geeks". Geeks may share the belief that linux is the best and willing to spend a lot of time tinkering with it, but not all of them went to programming college or professionally wrote in C for many years. Many users actually seem to be ashamed of demanding certain features/fixes for themeselves, they demand it on behalf of joe sixpack or business production environment.

Well, I have Linux (SuSE) only, at home, and Linux (SuSE again) dual-boot with Win NT at the office. The office IS a business production environment, and I'm constantly discouraged from addressing that environment (i.e., where I work all day, five or six days a week) without frequent reboots into Windows, just to get the job done. You know that old saying: Never attempt to cross a chasm in two leaps...? Well, that's what I feel like. The chasm is between all the other employees in this office (who are using Windows and MS Office), and the holy-grail of them doing the same work they do now, but on a Linux desktop. So far, one guy has built a flimsy little scaffold that extends a few meters over the chasm (using Windows and MS Office and FrameMaker and Illustrator and Visio, when I have to switch back from SuSE 8 with OpenOffice... and Gimp and Dia and...). But, the scaffold is swaying in the breeze, and the open space appears to be still a kilometer wide. I persist in having high hopes for OOo, and have bought a book to help me get there... but I was discouraged to learn that the authors of "The StarOffice 6 Companion" were unable to write the book using that software. In the interests of time, expediency, getting the job done and edited before the publishing deadline, they used FrameMaker. Well, hey! *I* have the very same needs every day. I have to produce my work in an efficient and expedient manner, to meet my publishing deadlines, or to interact with my cow-orkers to help them get *their* jobs done. Does anybody on this list think that, when I fill out my timesheets, I actually include things like "nine hours trying to get printing to work from Linux... and failing"...?? Not on your life. I'm sure that I'll be a resource for other people in the company when we begin moving from Windows (if I still work here...), but in the meantime, I try to hide how much of a time-sink this is. I don't impress anybody when they come around asking me for something... or giving me something... and I say "Hang on a few minutes, while I boot into Windows". Or, I'll *be* in Windows and I have to reboot into Linux to get at my mail. I can use Outlook to look at recent messages, but I have it set to just look, and not to move messages from the server. KMail is the app that now captures my mail from the server, so if I want to look at messages from a few hours ago, or yesterday, I need to be back in Linux, since Windows can't read my Linux partition. Some programmers have worked here in Linux, but they still needed Windows when reviewing/ editing company documents (like specs and reports) and when using ClearCase/ClearQuest (commercial system for version control and bug reporting). The tools that they used for programming and editing, etc., in Linux had almost no overlap at all with the tools that I need to do my job. My job -- and those tools -- more closely resemble what most of the other people in the company will need, if they ever move over to Linux. In other words, Linux was mostly great for the two guys who were: a) programmers b) programming for Linux For Kevin, who represents most of the rest of the office population, Linux is still an uphill battle that is consuming far more time than I can admit, and that still can't get me through an entire day or let me produce the work that I get paid for. And I don't do anything fancy. So, I think that "business operational environment" is not just an excuse, behind which I'm hiding my embarassment. Rather, it's where I live and work all day, and where my cow-orkers would live and work if I could show the way. The IT people are bringing more Linux stuff into the server rooms, but I'm the only one trying to make it real on the daily desktop. So far, I haven't even satisfied myself. That means that I'm nowhere near being able to satisfy all the other Windows users here. (And did I mention that even though we are all still using Win NT, it's simply not all that fragile anymore.) I still want to get across the chasm, but I keep falling in and then dragging myself up the near side, for the safety of what works (and eating up a lot of time, each time). Linux on the desktop for actual everyday work is still "the far side" for me. Since I'm the unofficial guinnea-pig, that means it's not even on the radar screen for the other people who work here. Even after I get to the point where I can deliver a project entirely via Linux, that will mean only that *I* have reached the other side. Then, I have to pull the rope across, so that I can start to build the narrow, shaky bridge that a few other people might be willing to attempt. Once a few of the ordinary folk get comfortable, and IT dept. becomes confident at keeping them up, *then* the rest will be persuadable. Probably somebody else at my company should have been the Linux-desktop pioneer, but no one else had the interest (or the masochism?). So, I'm self-elected. Wish I had more progress to report. /kevin

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 23:32, Chris Carlen wrote:

Kevin McLauchlan wrote:

...

my timesheets, I actually include things like "nine hours trying to get printing to work from Linux... and failing"...?? Not on your life. I'm sure that

I agree 100% We have Linux-router / printer server in the office where I'm working. It has been up and running closer to 300 days now. No reboot, no problems with routing/hackers/mails/proxy... But the lprng printing stuff still prints out an extra form after every printing job. I have printed out (!) the full lprg manual (close to 300 pages), gone thru that, but there is just no help whatsoever. That is just so childish not to have a correction for that kind of simple "bug". No FAQ, nothing... I had similar bug at home, and was able to correct it, but the same thing does not work at the office.. Don't ask me why, it's over my head. So printing is a big pain, if it does not work "out-of-the-box"... If it does, don't touch it! There is just so bad bloatware-documents, and they are of no use in real situations.. much nice things You can do with lprng, but anyway... This evening I tried to make Logitech quickcam pro 4000 to work, but it just won't... Again frustruation.. Jaska

Kevin McLauchlan wrote: This is unrelated to the topic, and please don't take offence, it's none intended.

with my cow-orkers to help them get *their* jobs done.

<joke> So you want to help some orks that look like cows to get their job done? </joke> It's spelled co-workers. I'm not patronizing, and not doing cheap cracks either, but the cow-like orks are a fun thing to imagine :-) -- Silviu Marin-Caea Systems Engineer Linux/Unix http://www.genesys.ro Phone +40723-267961

On Thursday 31 October 2002 16.54, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:

But for those of us who are members of the CopyEditors mailing list, "cow-orkers" has been a standing joke for about the last seven years.

It's a Dilbert gag, isn't it?

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 17:35, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:

I don't impress anybody when they come around asking me for something... or giving me something... and I say "Hang on a few minutes, while I boot into Windows". Or, I'll *be* in Windows and I have to reboot into Linux to get at my mail. I can use Outlook to look at recent messages, but I have it set to just look, and not to move messages from the server. KMail is the app that now captures my mail from the server, so if I want to look at messages from a few hours ago, or yesterday, I need to be back in Linux, since Windows can't read my Linux partition.

It is possible to share the same mail folders between windows and linux, using netscape or mozilla. If you don't like mozilla, kmail can read netscape folders as they are, and viceversa. If you are interested, I'll expand. :-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Alex Daniloff wrote:

I'm not intending to run winblows of any kind, but I would like to have possibility to run Mozilla and Kmail using the same mail folders.

Could you please explain how to configure Kmail to read Netscape mail folders or vice versa.

Thank you in advance.

No problem :-) But, as it is late I'll try to be brief. I should have it written up, it is a question often asked. Ok, the main trick is that many mail programs use the same basic format: the unix mail folder format, or mbox. They may store it on different directories, but they can be changed or symlinked. Some need special extensions for the names for the subfolders, but again, they can be symlinked. Unfortunately, there is no agreement on how to store flags like read or new message, or indexes. Ok, to the method. You have to decide which program is "boss"; ie, the directory structure to use, and also who is responsible for fetching /and or sending mail. In my case, my main program is Pine, and the posting is handled by sendmail, fetchmail, and procmail, ie, externally to any mail client program. So, my mail folders are in "/home/myuser/Mail", and subfolders are just directories. Lets assume the folder "folder", and a subfolder "subfolder". I'll have this structure: /home/myuser/Mail/ directory /home/myuser/Mail/folder mbox file /home/myuser/Mail/subfolder/ directory /home/myuser/Mail/subfolder/folder another mbox file *** Netscape / Mozilla Netscape can see normal mbox files without problems, but it will create an index file of the same name with an .msf extension (some times it has to be manually created).However, it will not see subfolders unless they have a .sbd extension, and there is an mbox file named the same as the subfolder as well. You can use the same "/home/myuser/Mail/" tree, or create a new one, like "/home/myuser/Mail.mzla", holdings symlinks to all the folders from "~/Mail/" you want to see. I prefer the later, it's makes things better for pine, but it's more work to setup the first time (I use a script).In any case, you need to go to the menu "Edit/Mail and Newsgroups Accounts Settings". There, find the settings for "Local Folders/Local directory" and adjust acordingly to your choice. If it is a new directory, then for each original mbox file do create a new simlink to it {sometimes optional step: create empty index file} For each mbox file (or symlink to one) in the directory create an empty file with extension ".msf" with touch (ex: folder.msf) For each subfolder Create file "/home/myuser/Mail/subfolder.msf" with touch Create file "/home/myuser/Mail/subfolder" with touch Create symbolic link "home/myuser/Mail/subfolder.sbd" to the folder Repeat the above for each sub-sub-folder. Quit and restart netscape, and check what it sees and what it doesn't see. Redo, etc, for ever - this is linux ;-) Special files, created or used by Netscape: Sent, Templates, Trash, Unsent Messages, outbox, Inbox (?). Some can be configured, otherwise simlinked; but they have got to have those precise names. So, you will have something like this, or similar (there are many combinations, mine is more complicated): ~/Mail/ ~/Mail/mbox ~/Mail/folder/ ~/Mail/folder/mbox ~/Mail/mbox.msf (0 bytes) ~/Mail/folder.sbd --> ~/Mail/folder/ ~/Mail/folder (0 bytes) ~/Mail/folder.msf (0 bytes) ~/Mail/folder/mbox.msf (0 bytes) *** Netscape / Mozilla for windows This is an special case. It uses the same files as the linux version, but of course, it can not read linux partitions: thus, the windows version has to be the boss, and the linux version be configured to use the local files in the windows partitions. Otherwise, just symlink as needed. Example. The windows mozilla folders will be in some place like this: /windows/C/windows/Profiles/Cer/Application/Data/Mozilla/Profiles/default/l4mvabd3.slt/Mail/tiscali.es/Inbox /windows/C/windows/Profiles/Cer/Application/Data/Mozilla/Profiles/default/l4mvabd3.slt/Mail/Local Folders/Drafts Then, if I am interested in just reading the windows folders in linux, but not otherwise, I could do: cd Mail.mzla (or whatever) ln -s WindowsFolder LinuxFolder ln -s WindowsFolder.msf LinuxFolder.msf If I want to read/write in any of them, I'd have to symlink the main mozilla directory, which ever it is (somewhere in .mozilla/, for example ".mozilla/cer/txr7hrr6.slt/Mail/"), to the windows one in the fat partition. Security is impaired, though (FAT is world readable). Restriction: if you use NTFS in windows, you can not write to it from linux. *** Eudora for windows I don't have it, but as it uses the same mbox format (as Ole Kofoed pointed here), the folders can be, at least, read in linux. I don't have details. *** Kmail Im not sure if kmail ask the first time it runs where it should store the folders, but I have been unable to find that in the configuration file. Perhaps it always uses ~/Mail. Otherwise... :-? Kmail can see mbox files directly, and it will create its own indexes: mbox (original mailbox file) .mbox.index .mbox.index.sorted But it can not see the subfolders: we have to jump over some more loops ;-) Fortunately, this one was documented in kmail help: just create a symlink to the subdirectory with the extension ".directory". Also, if I remember correctly, it needs an empty new mbox file of the same name as the directory. For example: lists/ (original folder) ._klists.directory -> lists/ _klists (empty file) ._klists.index ._klists.index.sorted You do not need to create the indexes (which are hidden, that's very nice of the designers). *** balsa It uses the same format as Pine, so it is transparent. It even uses the same system for marking new/read/unread emails (an specially formated mail in the mbox file) *** evolution Unusable. It doesn't cooperate, it wants to be left alone. :-( It can read a mbox file, true. But if it is a symlink to an existing file, on exit that symlink is replaced by a real new file, which is a copy of the original one. That means changes made by the other programs will not bee seen by evolution, and viceversa. Very unfortunate :-( *** mutt I don't use it, I don't know. *** pine Highly configurable, uses standard mbox files and folders, with no external indexes. Will try to read *any* file in the asigned directory and all subdirectories of it, including indexes: that's why I use a different folder for mozilla, containing symlinks to the folders pine uses, and mozilla own indexes. Well, those are my notes. I'm sure there will be errors, but I hope they are not important. If something is unclear, just ask: but don't be on a hurry O:-) IMPORTANT: Before trying any of the above, backup all your mail folders. No excuses :-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

At 23:38 10/31/2002 +0100, Ole Kofoed Hansen wrote:

On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 17:35, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:

...

I don't impress anybody when they come around asking me for something... or giving me something... and I say "Hang on a few minutes, while I boot into Windows". Or, I'll *be* in Windows and I have to reboot into Linux to get at my mail. I can use Outlook to look at recent messages, but I have it set to just look, and not to move messages from the server. KMail is the app that now captures my mail from the server, so if I want to look at messages from a few hours ago, or yesterday, I need to be back in Linux, since Windows can't read my Linux partition.

It is possible to share the same mail folders between windows and linux, using netscape or mozilla. If you don't like mozilla, kmail can read netscape folders as they are, and viceversa.

Or you could use Eudora for reading mail in windows. It stores its folders in the standard unix mailbox format. Back when I switched to running SuSE full time, I just copied the files from Eudora's folder on the windows partition to ~/Mail and Pine saw my mail at once.

Regards

Ole

Then why isn't there a Eudora version for Linux, or am I just not with it? That would help me move to Linux full time. (I'm writing from MSW's Eudora.) --doug

There is a program called "Explore2fs" that will allow Windows to read your Linux ext2 or ext3 file system. It works, I have it here. The Windows filename is EXPLORE2.EXE. It is not perfect. --doug At 22:58 10/31/2002 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 17:35, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:

...

I don't impress anybody when they come around asking me for something... or giving me something... and I say "Hang on a few minutes, while I boot into Windows". Or, I'll *be* in Windows and I have to reboot into Linux to get at my mail. I can use Outlook to look at recent messages, but I have it set to just look, and not to move messages from the server. KMail is the app that now captures my mail from the server, so if I want to look at messages from a few hours ago, or yesterday, I need to be back in Linux, since Windows can't read my Linux partition.

It is possible to share the same mail folders between windows and linux, using netscape or mozilla. If you don't like mozilla, kmail can read netscape folders as they are, and viceversa.

If you are interested, I'll expand. :-)

-- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

Robert Sweet wrote:

...

It is possible to share the same mail folders between windows and linux, using netscape or mozilla. If you don't like mozilla, kmail can read netscape folders as they are, and viceversa.

That is why I have Cyrus Imap/Postfix/Procmail setup on my server...no matter what box I am on, I can read my mail independent of OS...though MUTT rulez :)

Of course, but you can not do that unless you have some control over the server :-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

doc wrote:

...

...

If you are interested, I'll expand. :-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Yes, please?

What's up with this thread? Did it die? I am monitoring this thread because this is what I want to do too. Carlos, please tell us how you did it. It seems there are several who want to know but it seems the only answers so far are "yes it can be done" or "why don't you try...". Does anyone know how to get KMail to see Netscape mail? I really want to escape Windows but the Linux version of Netscape looks horrible and is difficult to read. If there really isn't any way to get KMail to read Netscape mail, then perhaps is there another client that is good and can see Netscape mail? Damon Register

Joe & Sesil Morris (NTM) wrote: Your message is difficult to read and resond. It came as an attachment.

Sorry, I don't use Kmail so I can't help there, but have you used Netscape 7.0 for Linux? I am now using it INSTEAD of Mozilla, it has No, I hadn't since I tested 6.0 and hated it so much that I stayed with 4.x. At your suggestion, I downloaded and tried Netscape 7 in both Windows and Linux. Perhaps Netscape has redeemed themselves. Netscape 7 is very nice so now I don't mind using it for Linux. Thanks for your advice. It worked for me.

Now there is a new question on this subject: currently my mail folders still reside on a windows partition. I can mount the partition so it is seen in Linux and Netscape mail can find it. Is it possible to auto mount the partition at boot and can I do that such that no matter who logs in, he/she can access the folder? The problem I ran into last night is that when I logged in on one account and mounted the windows partition, I could access with Netscape (4.79) but when I wanted to log out and in on another account, I no longer had permission for that partition and Netscape couldn't access it. I tried looking through the SuSE support database and my SuSE 8.0 manual but found very little on windows partitions and nothing on auto mounting. Any suggestions? Damon Register

The 02.11.07 at 09:28, Damon Register wrote:

...

...

...

If you are interested, I'll expand. :-)

Yes, please? What's up with this thread? Did it die? I am monitoring this thread because this is what I want to do too. Carlos, please tell us how you did it. It seems there are several who want to know but it seems the only answers so far are "yes it can be done" or "why don't you try...". Does anyone know how to get KMail to see Netscape mail? I really want to escape Windows but the Linux version of Netscape looks horrible and is difficult to read.

Er... sorry, I did post a long mail explaining how to do it (nov-2), but there were not comments on it. I was also watching the thread for a few days but I saw none: I was somewhat puzzled, seeing the interest. I know I posted, because I received it. It is quite difficult for me to follow threads here, too much mail. I have been trying several programs, but none is perfect; and then I upgraded for 7.3 to 8.1 and got a bunch of new problems. If you don't find it in your files, try the archives at suse; if not, I'll repost or I'll send it direct, your choice - but I prefer the list :-)

If there really isn't any way to get KMail to read Netscape mail, then perhaps is there another client that is good and can see Netscape mail?

I assure you that not only it is possible, but it is easy: I did. The only real problem you'll have it's keeping track of what is read and what not, because most programs use different systems for that. You can use mozilla or Netscape 6 indistinctly, but also Netscape 4.7, balsa (gnome) or pine (text), even plain "mail", but not evolution (the conversion is not "bidirectional", it imports and use its own files there on). -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

On Wednesday, 30 October 2002 00:25, Chris Carlen wrote:

...

I rarely use Konqueror, let alone two windows simultaneously, but the above made me try it. I had never had the need to copy and paste. Guess what! I'm using 7.3 and can't do it either!

Huh? Now that's really weird, because I became familiar with doing it this way with Konqueror in Suse 7.3!

I can't imagine why you can't do it. Are you sure?

Of course, I was not sure, so I took time out to check things out scientifically. With Advanced Editor, I created an "ATest" file with one word (AAAAA) and then a "1Test" file with one word (11111). I went to Konq and opened "1Test", highlighted that word and copied it with Ctrl-C. The 'Copy' icon went dimmed *and so did the 'Paste' icon*! I clicked on 'Edit' icon to double check; both 'Copy' and 'Paste' commands were grayed out. With Ctrl-N, I opened "ATest" on another window. Both 'Paste' icon and command were dimmed; Ctrl-V didn't work either. I tried closing the "1Test" and opening the "ATest", then pasting the "11111" there. No dice. Undaunted, I clicked on the Konq icon in the task bar to open an entirely new window. I tried to paste from the clipboard to either file (ATest and 1Test), but neither Ctrl-V or clicking the icon worked. Without doing anything else, I opened Advanced Editor and pressed Ctrl-V, and the "11111" word was pasted there! From all these tests, I learned one thing: Konq does *not* allow pasting from *any* source (I had tried pasting the "11111" next to the original one). The *only* pasting allowed is in the 'Location" area (I clicked there and then Ctrl-V, and got the "11111" there!) Confession: all the "11111" above (and this one at the left) were pasted here with Ctrl-V from the copy from Konqueror. This (mis)behavior by Konq doesn't surprise me at all, as it becomes only one more reason I dislike it. That said, and to be honest, I don't blame Konq entirely, as my patience *has* run out with this computer. The computer *is* quite good with the original Win98, but has *never* worked 100% with Mandrake 6.2, 7.2, 8.1, 8.2, Corel-Linux, Red Hat 6.1, 7.1, SuSE 6.4, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3. Of all the above, S-7.3 is the one I've used the longest. One (and a *major*!) issue is that of fonts, but that's another story... -- Regards, gr (in /usually/ balmy, sunny Florida's Suncoast) [powered by SuSE-7.3 Linux 2.4.10]

Hello Chris, I'm sorry for your disappointment and frustration with SuSE8.1 Linux distro. However, in our eng. dept. which runs solely on Linux SuSE 7.1/7.3/8.0/8.1 situation is right opposite to yours. Our engineers were very frustrated with WinNT as a desktop OS due to its constant crashes, especially during critical data analysis operations. About two years ago we started an experiment within our engineering group to run WinNT via Vmware on the top of the Linux boxes. The more my colleagues were getting familiar with Linux the less

Alex Daniloff wrote: they were

firing up Vmware with Winblows. Finally all installations of WinNT and Vmware were wiped off from our hard drives.

Thanks for your input, Alex. And thanks for not flaming me. I was a bit frustrated this afternoon. Things are a bit better now. You know, I really am amazed by your experience. I work at Sandia, a big US nuclear laboratory. 90% of desktops are Windows, NT until about a year ago, and now 2000. The other 8% are Macs, and about 2% SGI and Linux. I often try to advocate Linux to folks, on both philosophical and technical grounds. Unfortunately, I don't know what I will say if anybody tries to install Linux, and has a lot of problems. I may have to eat my shoe. But I usually don't hide the fact that it can take more effort to tweak Linux into shape than Windows. But what I find interesting and disturbing, is that out Windows machines at work don't crash. I work with scientists. And they never say their machines crash. They are doing constant scientific data analysis, and technical document preparation. I should ask more of them if their machines crash. But so far, I have been very disappointed to find, of the three guys that I talk to regularly about this, that they say their machines run for weeks without crashing. This disappoints me because I can't honestly argue to them that Linux is more stable. In fact, with the instability of the flagship Konqueror, that they would most certainly encounter if they tried a modern Linux, while clearly it is not representative of the stability of the underlying Linux, they would likely get a bad taste about that. Also, peculiar hardware problems can lock a Linux box, not really the fault of Linux, but this would be perceived as such by Windows users. I am very happy to hear of your success getting engineers working on Linux. I often bug vendors of the softare tools for electrical engineering, my field, to port to Linux. I think in the next few years, some important software releases will appear for Linux. At least I hope.

I admit that the office programs in Linux still immature and KDE still didn't reach its pick of usability yet. Why don't you go back to basic if you're so unhappy with all these GUI applications? Use 'mc' Midnight Commander as your file/ftp browser instead of Konqueror. You can use Windowmaker instead of resource consuming KDE.

Well, I really like KDE, and the new KDE is really beautiful. I never liked mc. But really, I use a hybrid approach. I am not hooked on GUI. I use the command line quite a bit. But there are times when it seems easiest to use Konqueror, and other times it is most straightforward to use the prompt. This certainly is a plus about Linux, there are many ways to skin the cat, sometimes too many ways.

You can prepare the content of documents you need in plain text files using vi or other simple editor. When you need, you can produce your final documents in pretty much all desirable formats using LaTeX. If you need to plot your data use GNUPlot or Perl.GD and other graphical modules. This is actually how most of scientific and research publications done.

Well, OpenOffice/StarOffice are great for general purpose stuff, once they are tweaked so the fonts look right. But they aren't good for complex technical docs. I resisted learning Latex for quite some time. But now I am going to learn it. I am starting with Lyx. I prefer the ease of just copy/pasting a graphic from one module of the office package to the wordprocessor, but OO/SO are just a bit too buggy for a complex doc, and their equation editors look like chickenscratch compared to Latex. I'll tell you, it was just last week that I finally wrote my first equations with Lyx (Latex, effectively) and they were so lovely I was practically drooling over them. So I'm sold on Latex/Lyx. Ok, good day! -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@earthlink.net Suse 7.3 Linux 2.4.10

But what I find interesting and disturbing, is that out Windows machines at work don't crash. I work with scientists. And they never say their machines crash. They are doing constant scientific data analysis, and technical document preparation. I should ask more of them if their machines crash. But so far, I have been very disappointed to find, of the three guys that I talk to regularly about this, that they say their machines run for weeks without crashing. This disappoints me because I can't honestly argue to them that Linux is more stable. In fact, with the instability of the flagship Konqueror, that they would most certainly encounter if they tried a modern Linux, while clearly it is not representative of the stability of the underlying Linux, they would likely get a bad taste about that.

BTW, long gone are those days that Windows machines would crash a lot. Today Windows 2000 almost never crashes in daily work. XP is 2000 based and is supposed to be more stable, so things in this respect don't look good for Linux. Salman

BTW, long gone are those days that Windows machines would crash a lot. Today Windows 2000 almost never crashes in daily work. XP is 2000 based and is supposed to be more stable, so things in this respect don't look good for Linux.

That's not true. I do not know why but windows machines always start to act strangely when I am around. I just have to suppose it is the same when I am not there, or should I think I do some black magic? However, stability is not the reason I switched to Linux. Linux is culture, while Windows looks like slavery. I am not paranoid. How can I learn how to set up a secure network if Windows set it up by itself? How can I test it? How do I know how to write a program without paying for Visual Studio (the students edition is totally unotpimized, so nobody can know if he is writing the wrong programs or it's compiler's fault)? The MSDN is a monolithic source of information, but way too messy. There is much more documentation on Linux anyway. How can I control a Windows machine? How could I trust something I do not have the source about? Why should I trust ANY automated configuration, and how could I be able to test it? The lack of answers is a good reason to move to Linux. Do you want to get the job done, without understanding what is going on? Without learning anything, without creativity? If your anser is yes, then sooner or later you will be obsolete. A machine could have your job done, and without complaining too. Praise

...

...

BTW, long gone are those days that Windows machines would crash a lot. Today Windows 2000 almost never crashes in daily work. XP is 2000 based and is supposed to be more stable, so things in this respect don't look good for Linux.

Any why does a Windows machine crash? Had a user once ask me that and I didn't bs him as I really didn't know...

I have a W2k machine next to the machine I am writing this on. It had been running fine, but has now started just re-booting randomly - since I installed SP3? - I think so. SO what do I do about it, it has 4GBs of development information - all backed up, but only option is to wipe hard disk and start again. Check each stage and try and get back up to the same configuration. I have decided that I will have to wipe my nice 8.0 machine, install W2k on that - which will probably take all week to get back to the current set of applications, what with checking for what caused the problem. Then once I am running again, wipe the old machine and replace 8.0 ( perhaps 8.1 ). BUT I only expect that to take a few hours. My patience with Microsoft ran out a loonngg time a go <g> and now most of my customers agree and are moving over to Linux. -- Lester Caine ----------------------------- L.S.Caine Electronic Services

On an OT note, SP 3 is seriously flawed, stick with SP 2 if at all possible.

Thanks for that - I'll try and find an old MSDN disk with SP2 on, the current one only has SP3 I would probably have done anyway as I suspected SP3 <g> Have managed to save Linux - found a 'spare' disk so I am using that on the problem machine, spooled all the data to the Linux machine but I can boot the old disk If I missed anything <bg> -- Lester Caine ----------------------------- L.S.Caine Electronic Services

On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 21:20, Salman Khilji wrote:

...

But what I find interesting and disturbing, is that out Windows machines at work don't crash. I work with scientists. And they never say their machines crash. They are doing constant scientific data analysis, and technical document preparation. I should ask more of them if their machines crash. But so far, I have been very disappointed to find, of the three guys that I talk to regularly about this, that they say their machines run for weeks without crashing. This disappoints me because I can't honestly argue to them that Linux is more stable. In fact, with the instability of the flagship Konqueror, that they would most certainly encounter if they tried a modern Linux, while clearly it is not representative of the stability of the underlying Linux, they would likely get a bad taste about that.

BTW, long gone are those days that Windows machines would crash a lot. Today Windows 2000 almost never crashes in daily work. XP is 2000 based and is supposed to be more stable, so things in this respect don't look good for Linux.

Salman

I am going to give everyone my opinion on this. XP and 200 are fine in terms of stability unless you are dealing with servers. I still find that Linux or <enter you favorite Unix system here> is much better in terms of stability for mail, pop3, dns, and web servers. This is where *Nix systems excel. The real reason for using a Linux system as a desktop is the need for having a Unix-like operating system on your desktop. Who needs this? CS students who want to learn Unix and program in a load of different languages. Sysadmins, Unix programmers, Network admins, database admins and other professionals who are tired of doing their work through a terminal or Exceed session then having to switch gears completely to write documentation, surf the net and get their email on a Windows box. If there was no market for the professionals I just listed then the companies like Exceed would go out of business tommorrow and Unix companies would stop making workstations all together. They have not. It is a nice niche market and I hope SuSE and Rehat do well in this. Still, they have to remember this focus market in terms of shaping their products. Sure, there will be people tired of the windows way of doing things, that hate macs and want to try a different way. Some will use linux and like it. Others will run screaming back to Redmond when they understand that linux does not and never will do things exactly like they already understand how to do things through their Windows boxes. -- Johnathan Bailes BAE Systems ESI "UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things." - Doug Gwyn ---

Salman Khilji wrote:

...

I first started out with kwrite and kate because they were easier. But

...

realized that in a hetrogeneous environment better get used to an editor

...

is available for both Windows and Linux so that I have my favorite editor available no matter where I go. I decided to learn XEmacs. Yes a bitch to learn in the beginning, but within a few weeks I hate every other editor in teh world!!

Maybe I should try Nedit again. I used that a long time ago.

...

...

6. Let's see if OpenOffice as installed and polished by Suse is able to impress this business user: The default font in OpenOffice is Times.

Yes, I agree. I installed OO on my computer and uninstalled it within half-an-hour. Too disappointing. I would wait for a few more years (if Linux survives a few more years of course) to come back to Office suites on Linux. For me, MS Office still is the best choice. (Although I don't do much Word Processing at all).

After considerable tweaking of the fonts in Linux, I am able to get OpenOffice to look very good. I guess I was complaining that it shouldn't be necessary. But I should know better because I know that the font problem in Linux is a very complex one, but it is making progress over time. My concerns are about business users though, who aren't interested in having understanding and tolerance for the crudeness of the OS. They know that fonts and function in Office are what they expect, and if they see Linux desktops that are all ugly and coarse, they will think "that is crap" and not have any interest in understanding that it can be fixed. They just want it to work, now.

...

...

7. Several times now while typing in OpenOffice, I have had some sort of menu from KDE pop up on top of my typing. The pop-up menu related to inserting or opening URLs ?local file URL, actions for file...; send

From the Klipper icon in the task bar, I decided to disable actions. Yes what you are describing is VERY annoying and should be turned off be default. We make so much fun of Microsoft, but believe me, this Klipper feature of popping up in the middle of your work is at least 3 times more annoying

If all this stuff can be fixed, why isn't it fixed already in the distro you buy? Why don't we have a real Windows competitor, instead of a moving target that breaks something else with each release? I would be using more Linux if everything worked as advertised. (Also, if I had a bigger second drive on this computer.) --doug At 20:53 10/29/2002 -0800, Chris Carlen wrote: then I that than

...

the famour annoying Mr Klippy in MS Office (which BTW is turned off by default in Office XP).

Well I sure will be turning off the klipper.

Thank you for your comments.

-- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@earthlink.net Suse 7.3 Linux 2.4.10

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 08:50, kathee wrote: t.

So, if MS Office is your tool of choice, stick with it and stick with Windoze (or use CrossOver like I do if I really have to).

I thought the guy made it very clear he was a linux advocate and worked with Linux for a long time has become frustrated with the experience. You can like something and still be frustrated by its shortcomings. I know this for sure since I use Gnome2.0 without menu editing still :->. He is blowing off steam. People get far too serious too quick. As a CTO it seems that you should see this after don't your employees do this sometimes. The guy was harsh but sometimes you have to be. I use SuSE at work and Redhat 8.0 at home. OpenOffice still looks nasty on SuSE but right out of the box it looks good on RedHat. BTW, yes I do know all the tricks about how to make OpenOffice look decent in regard to the fonts inside the app and in the documents. Still, an enduser should not have to deal with this.

I travel every week and I watch people "scream" at ticket agents, hotel employees and the like. It gets them nothing.

But he is fussing to the community not calling up SuSE tech support personally giving them hell. There is a big difference.

On Tue, 2002-10-29 at 23:55, Salman Khilji wrote:

...

...

6. Let's see if OpenOffice as installed and polished by Suse is able to impress this business user: The default font in OpenOffice is Times.

Yes, I agree. I installed OO on my computer and uninstalled it within half-an-hour. Too disappointing. I would wait for a few more years (if Linux survives a few more years of course) to come back to Office suites on Linux. For me, MS Office still is the best choice. (Although I don't do much Word Processing at all).

On the subject of Word Processing I still like WordPerfect 8.0 the best. OpenOffice is nice but since I like Gnome I feel that Abiword for my tastes has the nicest interface -- now if they get tables and better Word imports I will stick with them. -- Johnathan Bailes BAE Systems ESI "UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things." - Doug Gwyn ---

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 08:50, kathee wrote:

Have to throw my scarf (sorry don't wear hats) into the ring.

I wonder how many people still use their computer as a glorified typewriter? I mean with all the apps and power of PC's it seems all the world is focused on Word and Excel. Just my opinion, but of course, that is all people seem to cry about.

Well, one of the most useful things that a computer can do for the general business user is to be a glorified typewriter. It's the "glorified" part that MS Word has done so well. Like it or not, for the hundreds of millions of office computer users, the everyday convenience and ease-of-use of Word is the standard that now must be met by any tool that would replace it. Most of us never use a fraction of the power of Word, but even the small subset that is commonly used by the majority of office users, seems to be a difficult target for Linux to achieve. I use Word when I have to, which means when I'm dealing with other people's documents. My own "glorified typewriter" is FrameMaker. I hope you can appreciate the slight-but-important difference that I recognize between (say) Notepad or Gedit and FrameMaker, and why I would not willingly spend a large part of my every working day using an actual typewriter or using an ordinary text editor. As with Word, I also do not make use of most of the functionality that is in FrameMaker. Yet, there seems to be no Linux solution that supports the basic things that I do in Frame every day. I've been trying to make OpenOffice 1.0.1 take over the task, but so far, I keep falling back to Windows and FrameMaker in order to get my projects out the door. I get a bit further toward my goal every time, but I waste a lot of time on each project, taking one step forward and two steps back.

So, if MS Office is your tool of choice, stick with it and stick with Windoze (or use CrossOver like I do if I really have to).

Are you saying that Linux and any/all Linux-based applications are unable to replicate the (perhaps) ten percent of MS Office/Windoze functionality that the average user... actually uses? I mean, every Linux geek that I've ever met (in person or in e-mail) likes to point out how bloated MS Word is. But how many people actually USE most of that bloat? Very, very few. There are super-users and specialty users who do make use of the fancy features, but mostly there is a core of functionality that is actually used by general office people. It's that core stuff that needs to "just work". For the vast majority of Windows/Office users, it does "just work". That means, they just fire it up, out of the box, and they start working, pleasing their bosses. For the people who have made OpenOffice (for example) into their everyday office application set... well, in the first place, there aren't that many of them. Most of the respondents in the OpenOffice [Users] list are dabblers, like me, who are still getting to know it. They still go back to MS products to do real work... you know, the kind of work that the legions of office drones get paid for?

But in all seriousness, I use my computer/laptop for so much more. I still watch users fumble with MS products. And then if they are using those they are playing games. Not my idea of the best use of a computer especially at work.

Well, aside from the games issue (and do you really think they'd avoid all the games in your average Linux distro? :-), what do you actually think is the "best use of a computer at work" for clerks and administrators, and people in Sales and people in Finance and people in HR and people in Production/Operations and people in Security and....?? My own CTO, here at the office does most of his work in his head, or in brainstorming sessions with other senior technical people, as they lay the groundwork for our next products. When he grabs a computer, it's to: a) record and organize his thoughts (word processor) b) make projections and "what-if" scenarios (spreadsheet) c) communicate with others (e-mail, scheduling, project manager, presentation) I could, of course, make similar breakdowns of what the other groups do in the company, but the descriptions would all include -- in order of greatest usage -- a) e-mail and scheduling b) word processing or spread-sheet c) web Specialists have specialist tools (programmers have their editors and compilers, configuration management has the CM and BoM tools, Product Verification has the test tools, and so on, but all of 'em occupy a great deal of their time writing or updating documents, reading and writing e-mails, looking up facts or filling forms, etc.

A funny thing -- my boss (CEO, as I am the CTO) told me about a week or so ago that he has to reboot 4-6 times a day because windoze just "freezes". My VP of Sales said she reboots about 6+ times a day since things just "stop responding". They have never really shared these comments before. I asked, "Why do you put up with it?" The replied, "I am used to it... yes, I sometimes lose files, but I have gotten in the habit of clicking 'save' about every 5 minutes so my losses are minimal."

Everybody in our company uses WinNT4 and Office 2000. When somebody actually gets a blue screen, these days, it's an event. Once a month, in the entire company? If somebody has their Windows desktop lock up, then everybody smiles because the rest of the company is safe for the rest of the month. It's that rare. And these are people who use their computers all day, every day. In other words, such failure is very, very rare, and that's for the old, shaky version of Windoze. Nobody reports frequent freezes or losses of work. That's all history, from five and ten years ago. The last time anybody reported a mess of problems, it turned out that they'd disabled the virus scanner one time too many... Yes, people do experience frustration and loss of work and loss of time, but that's usually because they are failing to make the best use of (say) Word. For example, they create a document (or worse, they modify somebody else's widely-used doc) with manual formatting and overrides everywhere, ignoring Styles. Then, they scream in frustration when Word behaves in what they think are stupid and arbitrary ways. Those who take some time to think through the design of a document (even a one-page form) and lay it out with a proper template and with proper Styles, well they almost never have problems. Strangely, if people make use of the Wizards, they usually arrive at trouble-free documents, and never suffer data loss. In 1998, I used to battle constantly with Word, and spent a significant proportion of my time re-doing stuff or trying to make the numbering features behave properly. Today, I still have a subconcious distaste for Word, but when I do have to use it, I never have trouble. Of course, I still avoid the "Master Document" feature, but that's what Frame is for... Excel is the standard for how spreadsheets should "just work". I have not seen a broken Excel document in three years. I have come back from power failures to find my Excel documents intact, right down to the last keystroke that I typed before the room went dark. I think that if your people are regularly experiencing the kinds of troubles that you describe, then you should: a) have a long talk with your IT manager/director, who is obviously not doing a proper job, and b) get those people some remedial training and c) hire a student/constultant for a few weeks of work repairing/replacing the documents and templates that most of these people use on a repetitive basis, and which give them so much trouble.

I was stunned. I still wonder why we accept this garbage that M$ produces.

You didn't write this in 1997, by any chance, did you? Maybe your IT people need to talk with my IT people. If the truth be known, the kinds of troubles you describe are what I've been experiencing with SuSE 8.0 and KDE 3.0.3 and OpenOffice.org 1.0.1. So what if I can (occasionally) kill a bunch of hung processes and maybe resume in X without rebooting? It still takes about as long as it would to reboot and deal with broken files or with retrieving backups and starting over from the last good version of my work. If your attitude is typical, then it would seem that we have an inkling of the problem. Linux and the "linux on the desktop" folks are aiming at the world of Windows in the mid-nineteen-nineties. There are good and sufficient reasons for dumping MODERN Windows OS and apps, but they have more to do with licensing costs and with spyware than they have to do with broken or unreliable software. Linux and KDE/GNOME and OpenOffice, etc. should be aiming to duplicate/exceed the working experience of TODAY's Windows users, not the dusty memories of last century. Remember, there may be hundreds, thousands, tens-of- thousands of computer users in any company, but there are a relative handful of IT people. The IT people may make the decisions about what goes into the server room, but they mostly *don't* get to decide what goes on all the desktops. As long as Linux is marketed mostly among mutually-self-congratulatory geeks, then it remains relegated to the back shop. You want to get it onto the legions of workaday desktops, then have it address the current experience and expectations of the workaday desktop users.

When was the last time you (sorry I forgot the name of the original poster on this thread) sent a scathing letter like you did to M$?? Probably never. Oh, and I am sure you will say, "but I never have problems with my Windoze install." That is fine and dandy. I have never had problems with ANY of my linux distros and I use all 3 of the major vendors just because I like variety.

My point is simple -- why not just go buy a stripped down PC, load windoze on it with the bloated MS Office and move on? Does screaming at a company really accomplish anything? Especially on a public list?

Linux is still underdog. Linux is still mostly geeks and hobbyists. The Linux powers-that-be need to be reminded that they are still not quite "getting it". Just be glad that he wrote such an articulate and well-organized letter, while seething in frustration. To a proper, attentive marketing team, that kind of stuff is GOLD! [...]

Perhaps in the M$ world it does, but I doubt they will ever listen. They simply want to control you, your PC and your software habits -- plain and simple.

And one way they are doing that is by addressing the perceived needs (and yes, often by shaping those perceptions) of the by-far largest mass of computer users... the everyday business desktop user. If Linux proponents want to break that strangle-hold, they can either hope for miracles in the courts, or they can address the needs and expectations of the hundreds of millions of people who have a job to do, and who don't want (or get paid) to spend a lot of time and effort figuring out how to make the most basic tools work.

Next time you don't like something, try a positive approach or simply move on. If you are so upset that things "dont't work for you", then "but another car"... This is not rocket science.

In closing, I will never understand the M$ world and why people accept such mediocrity. If my system just "froze" 6 or more times a day I would be on the phone, writing emails, or something to M$ to get it resolved. If my car simply "stopped working" 6 times a day, I would buy a new car. Why is it such a difficult thing to do? Don't we have enough problems in the world than to worry about how well a "glorified typewriter" is working on your desktop?

My glorified typewriter works when it's in Windows mode, and it doesn't quite work when it's in Linux (SuSE 8) mode. For example, here at the office, I still reboot into Windows every time I need to print. For whatever silly reason, I *want* it to work, at least as well as any other glorified typewriter, when it's in Linux mode. As well, when I'm in Linux mode (which is at least half of most days), I'm staring at a flickering 60Hz screen and getting a headache. Then I switch to Windows and get to look at higher resolution and 85Hz for a while, and my headache recedes a bit. I just want that same ease and function in Linux. Is that really so much to ask?

cheers

Indeed :-) /kevin

WELL SAID!!! I vote Kathee for president. :) Q On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 15:50, kathee wrote:

Have to throw my scarf (sorry don't wear hats) into the ring.

I wonder how many people still use their computer as a glorified typewriter? I mean with all the apps and power of PC's it seems all the world is focused on Word and Excel. Just my opinion, but of course, that is all people seem to cry about.

So, if MS Office is your tool of choice, stick with it and stick with Windoze (or use CrossOver like I do if I really have to).

But in all seriousness, I use my computer/laptop for so much more. I still watch users fumble with MS products. And then if they are using those they are playing games. Not my idea of the best use of a computer especially at work.

A funny thing -- my boss (CEO, as I am the CTO) told me about a week or so ago that he has to reboot 4-6 times a day because windoze just "freezes". My VP of Sales said she reboots about 6+ times a day since things just "stop responding". They have never really shared these comments before. I asked, "Why do you put up with it?" The replied, "I am used to it... yes, I sometimes lose files, but I have gotten in the habit of clicking 'save' about every 5 minutes so my losses are minimal."

I was stunned. I still wonder why we accept this garbage that M$ produces. When was the last time you (sorry I forgot the name of the original poster on this thread) sent a scathing letter like you did to M$?? Probably never. Oh, and I am sure you will say, "but I never have problems with my Windoze install." That is fine and dandy. I have never had problems with ANY of my linux distros and I use all 3 of the major vendors just because I like variety.

My point is simple -- why not just go buy a stripped down PC, load windoze on it with the bloated MS Office and move on? Does screaming at a company really accomplish anything? Especially on a public list?

I travel every week and I watch people "scream" at ticket agents, hotel employees and the like. It gets them nothing. More often than not, I walk up to whomever they were screaming up after they leave and apologize for the person even if I don't know them. I can't count the number of times I have been moved to First Class (without having to use upgrades) or given hotel Suites for no charge, and more. Yelling a b*tching does little to win over your cause. Perhaps in the M$ world it does, but I doubt they will ever listen. They simply want to control you, your PC and your software habits -- plain and simple.

Next time you don't like something, try a positive approach or simply move on. If you are so upset that things "dont't work for you", then "but another car"... This is not rocket science.

In closing, I will never understand the M$ world and why people accept such mediocrity. If my system just "froze" 6 or more times a day I would be on the phone, writing emails, or something to M$ to get it resolved. If my car simply "stopped working" 6 times a day, I would buy a new car. Why is it such a difficult thing to do? Don't we have enough problems in the world than to worry about how well a "glorified typewriter" is working on your desktop?

cheers Kat

On Tue, 2002-10-29 at 23:55, Salman Khilji wrote:

...

...

6. Let's see if OpenOffice as installed and polished by Suse is able to impress this business user: The default font in OpenOffice is Times.

Yes, I agree. I installed OO on my computer and uninstalled it within half-an-hour. Too disappointing. I would wait for a few more years (if Linux survives a few more years of course) to come back to Office suites on Linux. For me, MS Office still is the best choice. (Although I don't do much Word Processing at all).

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

Use this script. Q On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 09:25, Bryan Tyson wrote:

On Tuesday 29 October 2002 20:11, Chris wrote:

...

Let's see if OpenOffice as installed and polished by Suse is able to impress this business user: The default font in OpenOffice is Times. I type some random text with Times, and it looks like crap because the characters are practically laying on top of each other, and the cursor doesn't sit just after a typed character like it should, but lies sort of right on top of the characters. Changing to 14 point and type some more, the new chars are more widely spaced, but not taller than the 12 pt. 16 pt. Scales up, but 18 pt. Is the same as 16. The spacing scales, so presumably the print looks fine, but this is the same scaling awkwardness that I've experienced in StarOffice/OpenOffice for years (yes I know how to make it just the way I want by a very extensive manual overhaul of the X font installation, but that shouldn't be needed in Suse 8.1 in the year 2002, it should just all be perfect), and which is slowly getting better, but this is still not good enough for the business desktop.

I hear you. You are using 8.1, whereas I am still on 8.0, but I have experienced exactly what you describe. I am really surprised at the terrible font situation in SuSE 8.0 with both OpenOffice and StarOffice 5.2. Some fonts and/or font sizes are displayed so messed up on screen that they are not even usable. If nothing else, you'd think they'd at least have Times, probably the most-used font around, working right. An unbelievable deficiency for SuSE 8.0 in 2002. Fonts are so basic, so essential, you'd think this would be one of the very first things straightened out instead of the last. I am disappointed to learn from you that in 8.1 this depressing situation still persists.

Contrastingly, when I use SO in Mandrake, the fonts work great.

And don't get me started on using the Filters - Render - Dynamic Text in Gimp where EVERY FONT says it is unavailable!

*************************************************** Powered by SuSE Linux 8.0 Professional KDE 3.0.0 KMail 1.4 This is a Microsoft-free computer

Bryan S. Tyson bryantyson@earthlink.net ***************************************************

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 23:29:27 -0800 Ben Rosenberg <ben@whack.org> wrote: . . . snip

Yes, use this script and also visit kde-look.org. A user on that site just posted over 1200 TTF's that he collected together. They are free

snip . . . Well, this maybe a stupid question, but I won't know if I don't ask. I created the script that Quinton posted and received the following error as the shell script executed for each of the font packages: courie32.exe: Fetching ... done Extracting ... failed ... deleted! so I edited the script I created and deleted the wget quiet option to see what was happening with the download and saw this result for each of the font packages: Resolving umn.dl.sourceforge.net... done. Connecting to umn.dl.sourceforge.net[128.101.80.130]:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 Successful Length: 661,728 [application/octet-stream] 100%[====================================>] 661,728 747.94K/s ETA 00:00 11:13:00 (747.94 KB/s) - `times32.exe' saved [661728/661728] done Extracting ... failed ... deleted! The file had been downloaded, but the extraction phase fails for some reason. What am I missing here? I have not written many scripts (well lets make that maybe two and this is the second one - I am a real newbie when it comes to scripts so go easy ;-) ) -- I see the loop that is supposed to extract the fonts (from Quinton's post):

for archive in $FONTS; do file=`echo $archive|awk -F "/" '{print $NF}'` rm -f $file echo "$file:" echo -n " Fetching ... " wget $WGET_OPTIONS $archive if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then rm -f $file echo "failed ... deleted!" continue fi echo done echo -n " Extracting ... " cabextract -l $file &> /dev/null if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then rm -f $file echo "failed ... deleted!" else cabextract $file &> /dev/null echo "done" fi

but can't figure out why it is failing. Any suggestions? -- Mark Registered Linux User #287233 http://counter.li.org "The kind of person who always insists on his way of seeing things can never learn anything from anyone." Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

On October 31, 2002 12:28 pm, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Thursday 31 October 2002 17.36, Mark Burling wrote:

...

but can't figure out why it is failing.

The error I get when I remove the "> /dev/null" (and, as an aside, I can't understand why so many script programmers think it's cool to dump error

Because many scripts aren't run by humans.

messages in /dev/null) is "cabextract - no such file or directory". cabextract is nowhere on the 8.1 CDs

http://www.kyz.uklinux.net/cabextract.php3 Nick

* Anders Johansson (andjoh@rydsbo.net) [021031 09:29]: ->On Thursday 31 October 2002 17.36, Mark Burling wrote: ->> but can't figure out why it is failing. -> ->The error I get when I remove the "> /dev/null" (and, as an aside, I can't ->understand why so many script programmers think it's cool to dump error ->messages in /dev/null) is "cabextract - no such file or directory". ->cabextract is nowhere on the 8.1 CDs You can find this at corefonts.sourceforge.net ..the same place that houses the cab files of the fonts. :) -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I tell you what you should see.

On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Mark Burling wrote:

On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 23:29:27 -0800 Ben Rosenberg <ben@whack.org> wrote:

. . . snip

...

Yes, use this script and also visit kde-look.org. A user on that site just posted over 1200 TTF's that he collected together. They are free

snip . . .

Well, this maybe a stupid question, but I won't know if I don't ask. I created the script that Quinton posted and received the following error as the shell script executed for each of the font packages:

courie32.exe: Fetching ... done Extracting ... failed ... deleted!

Were you running the script as root, or an ordinary user? I ran the script as root and had no problems. Jim

On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 14:10:27 -0500 Mark Burling <mburling@bellsouth.net> wrote:

On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 09:30:26 -0800 (PST) Jim Cunning <jcunning@cts.com> wrote:

. snip

...

Were you running the script as root, or an ordinary user? I ran the script as root and had no problems.

Jim

yes - I logged on as root in a bash shell before running the script. When that didn't work I shutdown my x session and and logged in as root and re-ran the script. Still got the same error messages. . . Snip

Sound of head banging on the wall . . . Fixed the problem, once I installed the cabextract file from SourceForge. Amazing how well it worked this time ;-) Thanks for the information Ben and Jim. I read Ben's post and didn't think too much about it. Read Jim's post, posted my response and then realized later that I hadn't installed the extract prog. Thanks again -- Mark Registered Linux User #287233 http://counter.li.org "The kind of person who always insists on his way of seeing things can never learn anything from anyone." Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

* Bruce Marshall; <bmarsh@bmarsh.com> on 31 Oct, 2002 wrote:

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 2:29 am, Ben Rosenberg wrote:

...

* Quinton Delpeche (quintond@knowledgefactory.co.za) [021029 23:19]: ->Use this script. -> ->> Contrastingly, when I use SO in Mandrake, the fonts work great. ->> ->> And don't get me started on using the Filters - Render - Dynamic Text in ->> Gimp where EVERY FONT says it is unavailable!

Could someone please repost the original script?? I've been seraching the archives for it but all that came through there was:

it is available at the Unoffical SuSEFAQ http://dinamizm.ath.cx -- Togan Muftuoglu Unofficial SuSE FAQ Maintainer http://dinamizm.ath.cx

On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 00:16, Dan Coalman wrote:

Chris,

As I read your post, I was immediately reminded of the endless hours I spent rebuilding NT & Exchange Servers because of failed Service Packs and other "upgrades". This was doubly frustrating because, once we repaired the server(s), we would usually discover that 3rd party vendor apps (print tracking, time&billing) were incompatible with the current SP. The most damaging "upgrade" was Exchange Server 5.5, SP 2, which corrupted - well - everything and I got to sit on the phone with the "Evil Empire" for 14 hours straight and manually change the entire registry. *shiver*

Then there was IE 6, which hosed all our JavaScript procedures provided by 3rd party vendor portals - such as Streaming Video. They simply wouldn't load at the front-end anymore. Not a good thing for a media-based corporation on a global landscape.

Regardless, even if Windoze doesn't crash as much as Linux - I can live with it, especially right now. Why? Because of the cost. I gave six presentations last week which required illustrating timelines, resource usage, and other aspects of ERP. I used StarOffice 6.0 and Mr. Project: total cost = $60.

Had I used MS Office (2k or XPee) - I would have to shell out $400 clams (USD). Oh! Wait! MS Project is not part of the Office suite, so that's another *gulp* $600(USD)! ...and don't forget about extra licenses for my staff.

I'm a consultant nowadays - and those prices are simply not justifiable to me, especially now that there are more economical alternatives.

Linux is evolving, as it always should - I look at this as a very exciting time. It reminds me of the mid-80's when 486 fever began sweeping the U.S. The difference is that there's a huge knowledge base this time around - accessible to anyone and everyone at any time.

Linux is stepping into the ring with Goliath. I'm bringin' my slingshot.

These situations will get better imho, think about how the community works, most programs aren't written by one persons vision at work and in secrecy. Thats the thing with OS X 10.2, its nice to look at and is better than XP in almost everyway, but always feel that something is missing from that platform, plus too much added too from third party vendors. Lots of people buy Nortons Anti-Virus, yet no virus bar macro ones (macro ones through MS Office) exist on this platform...Yet people there spend $100 on something that is useless to them, but it sure likes to get in the way. This is why I believe MSFT is wrong, its not that the community doesn't like to spend money on software, its just we tend to be a lot more savvy when it comes to product purchases (well illustrated above). The "downside" to OpenSource is much like shopping in a bazaar, a lot of good that haven't been specifically written to use one particular feature set as it depends on what the developer felt was the most necessary addition at the time. The point of the distribution seems to me to be one of integration, but with SuSe its integration of bleeding edge components, think about test pilots 30 or 40 or more years ago when it was at its most dangerous, yet most exhilirating. Its an exciting future ahead, what with the gift HP are giving to the community with the ability to switch resolutions on the fly in X. And there is certainly a ton of interest in fonts right now, which no doubt will be improved and fixed pretty soon...Wonder if anyone is going to make an extensis suitcase or an Adobe Type manager type of application? I doubt Adobe will, nor extensis, being proprietry and based on the size of the Linux community they will miss out, because by the time they realise they could have made some money from it they would have been too late. Matt <snipped for brevity...was a great post>

On Wed, 30 Oct 2002 12:05:34 +0100 Dan Am <suse@dertext.de> wrote:

sorry if this has been brought up, I could not follow all the postings, but isn't UNITED LINUX supposed to address this issue, with longer devolepment cycles and standard components. The "business user" seems to considered a special audience by the makers of United Linux and SuSe is part of that.

I think there is confusion about the stability of linux. Linux is very stable at what it was intended to excel at: running servers and automating them thru scripting. The "Desktop Linux" phenomena has somehow co-opted the "linux stability label" and has confused the newbies into thinking that "Desktop Linux" is supposed to be stable; it isn't, it's experimental. If you run linux with only a very basic X environment, (no KDE or Gnome), you will get a very solid machine, although you may need to give up some fancy "drag'n'drop" stuff, and the like. Now that brings us back to the origin of this thread, and my basic gripe about the newer versions of SuSE. They are catering to the "Desktop Linux" crowd, instead of the "Secure Server" crowd. The installations are making it very easy to "automatically install" a desktop, but are making it more difficult to install a simple rock solid server, without all the fluff attached. It is becoming like "Windows was\is", and it is inevitable that this will happen, since you are trying to make "a no-brainer operating system" so newbies can be up and running in an hour and surfing the web. When I install now, most of my time is spent "deinstalling" all the stuff I don't want, like getting rid of the "automatic framebuffer" and the stupid login graphics, or getting the firewall to work with my straight forward ppp login. The "cute penquin" sitting on tty1 is'nt worth a damn thing, and probably is a security risk, since it adds to the complexity of the booting process, most of which is well hidden. So why do it? The answer to that is what is ruining the "linux experience". -- use Perl; #powerful programmable prestidigitation

On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 09:06, zentara wrote:

Now that brings us back to the origin of this thread, and my basic gripe about the newer versions of SuSE. They are catering to the "Desktop Linux" crowd, instead of the "Secure Server" crowd. The installations are making it very easy to "automatically install" a desktop, but are making it more difficult to install a simple rock solid server, without all the fluff attached. It is becoming like "Windows was\is", and it is inevitable that this will happen, since you are trying to make "a no-brainer operating system" so newbies can be up and running in an hour and surfing the web.

When I install now, most of my time is spent "deinstalling" all the stuff I don't want, like getting rid of the "automatic framebuffer" and the stupid login graphics, or getting the firewall to work with my straight forward ppp login.

The "cute penquin" sitting on tty1 is'nt worth a damn thing, and probably is a security risk, since it adds to the complexity of the booting process, most of which is well hidden. So why do it? The answer to that is what is ruining the "linux experience".

That's why I use "minimium install" with my servers, and "default with X" for my desktops. Therefore, my servers have no problems with fluff when installed (although, they are still running 7.0, so I might retract this statement this weekend if 8.1 doesn't have a *true* minimum install ;^) ...but the point is, those options help alot between the two usages of the computers during install.