Re: [opensuse] Why are there not more using Linux?
OK, I've been wanting to answer this question for ages, but there's just so much to say. In the end, I've given up trying to say everything completely cohesively, and I'm just going to allow myself to ramble and hope it helps some. First, a little background. I have a pretty good computer background. I wrote 6502, Z80, 8088, 68000 and other machine languages starting 25 years ago. I was a programmer for 15 years, writing network protocol software before the TCP stack was generally available, Unix device drivers, and a bunch of distributed control systems. Eventually I moved to corporate teaching, which I still do. I was using Linux to teach TCP and Unix system administration in 1994, and other than Linux, I'm mostly a Solaris body. I have 3 Linux systems at home, two of which dual-boot with windows so I can run Photoshop in a color managed environment. I use VMWare for some other windows stuff that's less crucial to me. I also have a dual processor SPARC/Solaris 10 system. I loath and detest bill gates and everything he stands for. I regularly point out to my students that his company is a marketing company (very effective one, sadly) not a technology company. I believe they've never invented anything good, and have damaged many, if not most, of the ideas they've "appropriated". Until about 6 months ago, I was on a one man crusade to try to get my friends all using Linux. Around about then (after one success,yay! :) I finally gave up :( I can't begin to tell you the heartache, sadness, and sense of failure I felt when I reached that decision. Anway, what follows are some of the key/memorable personal experiences that wore me down and made me give up. Please remember that I love Linux, I love the people who put their effort into creating and maintaining it, and I think it has improved tremendously in recent years. I blame nobody for the "weaknesses" outlined below, other than what I see as bill gates' unreasonable and amoral (but sadly, probably entirely legal) practices. 1) Hardware issues. If you just walk into a store and ask for a machine that will be good to go with Linux, they'll look at you blankly. It's a major effort to check the details yourself. Most off the shelf machines don't tell you exactly what cards they contain, and then it's often hard to find the devices in the HCLs. New hardware--inevitably--is most likely to be unsupported or buggy. Finding the HCLs used to be hard. I just checked, and this seems to have been fixed (thanks someone! :) HCL is online, and I don't usually have access to the internet when I'm in a store browsing! Whichever way you slice it, having to care about the exact hardware is a pain. I don't see any way (other than having the leverage of micky$loth) to get round this, and I certainly laud the efforts that have been made to improve life 2) Photography related. I use Windows to run Photoshop CS2 in a color managed workflow. In this, Linux doesn't cut it for two reasons: Color management. I tried to work out how to do the LCMS stuff, and a bunch of related color management options I though I was looking at, and just gave up, too much like hard work. Also, I seem to have the wrong colorimeter hardware already and am not willing to pay all over again for something else. GIMP is only 8 bit. That's fire in theory, but when you mess with stuff much, you quickly run into posterization (I see this even in some professional's work and while those in question don't seem to care, I personally hate it). 3) Irritations with web plugins. Idiots out there keep writing stuff that's windows only, and there always seems to be trouble trying to get the latest Flash player. When it's available, it's tricky to install. 4) Palm pilot-: Several versions of palm device just don't sync, needless to say, this includes some that matter to me. I don't know how to sync my palm and evolution-etc. with web calendars like google or yahoo. That's important to me. I gave up using my palm pilot because of this. Consequently, I'm appallingly badly organized and regularly double book myself and miss meetings. 5) Video; I have failed repeatedly to build a system that plays all reasonable kinds of video. Mostly this seems to be a deliberate policy on bill gates' part (and the lawyers and the evil patent system, of course). I've reached the point where I can do most file types with the exception of AVI with the type 9 codec. 6) Strange inconsistencies ("That can't happen"): These are really hard, time-consuming, and often fruitless to debug. My laptop (dual core 64bit Intel) won't shut down without crashing the kernel. It will hibernate, and the file system journaling means that I've been able to kill it when I have to shut it down completely, but it's still irritating, and I long-ago gave up trying to fix it. Updates that break things, the various methods that I've found my systems using to auto-patch seem prone to failure. Usually complaining about something incompatible. I have one machine (admittedly running 9.3) which has been trying to upgrade Mozilla for the last two years. I can't seem to stop it trying, the warning blob thingy always says updates are ready. I don't really care, but it's not reassuring. Biggest pain for me is that it seems like every time I decide I want to use/install/build a new piece of software, I have trouble with dependencies. I fetch a package, but then it won't install because something is missing, or the wrong version. I try to find the required stuff, but that won't install because something else is missing, or it's incompatible with something I already have. It might well be that I'm doing it all wrong, but I only have so much time to give to this stuff. Mostly I want a machine to just work. Usually, I give up and accept that I'm going to live without whatever new function it was that seemed exciting. All of which sounds like I'm really unimpressed with Linux. That's not the case. I know what work goes into this stuff, and I use it as much as possible anyway (the only things I do with Windows are run Photoshop, for the reasons given, and one check-writing program that I run under VMWare, because I always did, and GNUCash was too complicated to bother finding out about, and too much like hard work to migrate to). My problem, which is a huge personal disappointment, is that I realized about 6 months ago that I can't ask my friends to move to Linux. They just don't have what it takes still to cope. Me, sure, I can muddle through, but then again, I don't like to make this effort and I tend to accept restricted functionality as the price I pay to take my moral high ground and reject gates as much as possible. I also prefer the relative security that I get from avoiding "the Internet's petri dish" Generally, I would prefer to see less effort on "improvement" and more on stabilization. Pin down the compatibility issues (remember the Unix wars?--I do.) between versions of libblahdyblah or whatever, so I can just fetch a package and use it. Meanwhile, Linux seems to me to be a good choice for companies where one install effort can be rolled out to hundreds of users, but less viable for intermediate home users who want to do interesting and different things, but aren't able to help themselves. The really basic users, who browse, send email, write the odd document, and look at jpeg images from their cameras have no problem. I have one such friend that is completely computer illiterate and quite happy using OpenSUSE 10.1 with ICE window manager (old, weak hardware, couldn't run Gnome or KDE adequately). All other attempts to migrate my friends were met with legitimate objections that I couldn't counter. With thanks to all who've made this what it is, and with continuing faith that one day it'll be what it deserves to be, and have the acceptance and mainstream support it deserves. Hope this ramble helps, $0.02 Simon ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 25 January 2008 09:33:38 am Simon Roberts wrote:
GIMP is only 8 bit.
Sounds strange. Do you mean 8 bit per color? -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 25 January 2008 09:33, Simon Roberts wrote:
. Meanwhile, Linux seems to me to be a good choice for companies where one install effort can be rolled out to hundreds of users, but less viable for intermediate home users who want to do interesting and different things, but aren't able to help themselves. The really basic users, who browse, send email, write the odd document, and look at jpeg images from their cameras have no problem.
Simon: Thanks for an excellent rant. I couldn't agree with you more. I share your view of Gates & Co and your frustration with the steep learning curve needed to transition from M$ to Linux for those intermediate users which, unfortunately, is where most home users are. My mom is almost 84 and she is running opensuse 10.2. All her apps are web based: email and web browsing. She could be running a diskless box with a live cd for all she cares. She is very computer illiterate but she manages to read her bank account online and can tell which renters have paid on time and she can read her mail. Anything else stretches her tired old brain too far. She is my only success story. My daughter and family had an opensuse system but the slope-headed son-in-law had to have Windows for his games. Their hardware is too limited to run VirtualBox and wine doesn't run the games so they have WinXP and a crapper full of trojans, etc which I won't fix. Tit for tat. Sorta ditto for my other kid who is involved in some serious online realtime high performance gaming which would be a major pain in the ass to get working with Linux, if it were at all possible. So, I use Linux primarily, have VirtualBox to use those Windows apps that I need for business and, on those rare occasions where a VB session won't work right, I have a bootable XP drive on the bus that I can bring up. I have had more success with moving people to OpenOffice from M$. I believe that once they learn firsthand that they can wean away from Gates, they are more apt to look at an alternative to Windows. But I also draw to inside straights. Fred -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Simon Roberts schreef: | OK, I've been wanting to answer this question for ages, but there's just so much to say. In the end, I've given up trying to say everything completely cohesively, and I'm just going to allow myself to ramble and hope it helps some. First, a little background. I have a pretty good computer background. I wrote 6502, Z80, 8088, 68000 and other machine languages starting 25 years ago. I was a programmer for 15 years, writing network protocol software before the TCP stack was generally available, Unix device drivers, and a bunch of distributed control systems. Eventually I moved to corporate teaching, which I still do. I was using Linux to teach TCP and Unix system administration in 1994, and other than Linux, I'm mostly a Solaris body. I have 3 Linux systems at home, two of which dual-boot with windows so I can run Photoshop in a color managed environment. I use VMWare for some other windows stuff that's less crucial to me. I also have a dual processor | SPARC/Solaris 10 system. I loath and detest bill gates and everything he stands for. I regularly point out to my students that his company is a marketing company (very effective one, sadly) not a technology company. I believe they've never invented anything good, and have damaged many, if not most, of the ideas they've "appropriated". Until about 6 months ago, I was on a one man crusade to try to get my friends all using Linux. Around about then (after one success,yay! :) I finally gave up :( I can't begin to tell you the heartache, sadness, and sense of failure I felt when I reached that decision. Anway, what follows are some of the key/memorable personal experiences that wore me down and made me give up. Please remember that I love Linux, I love the people who put their effort into creating and maintaining it, and I think it has improved tremendously in recent years. I blame nobody for the "weaknesses" outlined below, other than what I see as bill | gates' unreasonable and amoral (but sadly, probably entirely legal) practices. | | 1) Hardware issues. | If you just walk into a store and ask for a machine that will be good to go with Linux, they'll look at you blankly. It's a major effort to check the details yourself. Most off the shelf machines don't tell you exactly what cards they contain, and then it's often hard to find the devices in the HCLs. | New hardware--inevitably--is most likely to be unsupported or buggy. | Finding the HCLs used to be hard. I just checked, and this seems to have been fixed (thanks someone! :) | HCL is online, and I don't usually have access to the internet when I'm in a store browsing! | Whichever way you slice it, having to care about the exact hardware is a pain. I don't see any way (other than having the leverage of micky$loth) to get round this, and I certainly laud the efforts that have been made to improve life | | 2) Photography related. I use Windows to run Photoshop CS2 in a color managed workflow. In this, Linux doesn't cut it for two reasons: | | Color management. I tried to work out how to do the LCMS stuff, and a bunch of related color management options I though I was looking at, and just gave up, too much like hard work. Also, I seem to have the wrong colorimeter hardware already and am not willing to pay all over again for something else. | | GIMP is only 8 bit. That's fire in theory, but when you mess with stuff much, you quickly run into posterization (I see this even in some professional's work and while those in question don't seem to care, I personally hate it). | | 3) Irritations with web plugins. Idiots out there keep writing stuff that's windows only, and there always seems to be trouble trying to get the latest Flash player. When it's available, it's tricky to install. | | 4) Palm pilot-: | Several versions of palm device just don't sync, needless to say, this includes some that matter to me. | I don't know how to sync my palm and evolution-etc. with web calendars like google or yahoo. That's important to me. I gave up using my palm pilot because of this. Consequently, I'm appallingly badly organized and regularly double book myself and miss meetings. | | 5) Video; I have failed repeatedly to build a system that plays all reasonable kinds of video. Mostly this seems to be a deliberate policy on bill gates' part (and the lawyers and the evil patent system, of course). I've reached the point where I can do most file types with the exception of AVI with the type 9 codec. | | 6) Strange inconsistencies ("That can't happen"): | | These are really hard, time-consuming, and often fruitless to debug. My laptop (dual core 64bit Intel) won't shut down without crashing the kernel. It will hibernate, and the file system journaling means that I've been able to kill it when I have to shut it down completely, but it's still irritating, and I long-ago gave up trying to fix it. | | Updates that break things, the various methods that I've found my systems using to auto-patch seem prone to failure. Usually complaining about something incompatible. I have one machine (admittedly running 9.3) which has been trying to upgrade Mozilla for the last two years. I can't seem to stop it trying, the warning blob thingy always says updates are ready. I don't really care, but it's not reassuring. | | Biggest pain for me is that it seems like every time I decide I want to use/install/build a new piece of software, I have trouble with dependencies. I fetch a package, but then it won't install because something is missing, or the wrong version. I try to find the required stuff, but that won't install because something else is missing, or it's incompatible with something I already have. It might well be that I'm doing it all wrong, but I only have so much time to give to this stuff. Mostly I want a machine to just work. Usually, I give up and accept that I'm going to live without whatever new function it was that seemed exciting. | | All of which sounds like I'm really unimpressed with Linux. That's not the case. I know what work goes into this stuff, and I use it as much as possible anyway (the only things I do with Windows are run Photoshop, for the reasons given, and one check-writing program that I run under VMWare, because I always did, and GNUCash was too complicated to bother finding out about, and too much like hard work to migrate to). My problem, which is a huge personal disappointment, is that I realized about 6 months ago that I can't ask my friends to move to Linux. They just don't have what it takes still to cope. Me, sure, I can muddle through, but then again, I don't like to make this effort and I tend to accept restricted functionality as the price I pay to take my moral high ground and reject gates as much as possible. I also prefer the relative security that I get from avoiding "the Internet's petri dish" | | Generally, I would prefer to see less effort on "improvement" and more on stabilization. Pin down the compatibility issues (remember the Unix wars?--I do.) between versions of libblahdyblah or whatever, so I can just fetch a package and use it. Meanwhile, Linux seems to me to be a good choice for companies where one install effort can be rolled out to hundreds of users, but less viable for intermediate home users who want to do interesting and different things, but aren't able to help themselves. The really basic users, who browse, send email, write the odd document, and look at jpeg images from their cameras have no problem. I have one such friend that is completely computer illiterate and quite happy using OpenSUSE 10.1 with ICE window manager (old, weak hardware, couldn't run Gnome or KDE adequately). All other attempts to migrate my friends were met with legitimate objections that I couldn't counter. | | With thanks to all who've made this what it is, and with continuing faith that one day it'll be what it deserves to be, and have the acceptance and mainstream support it deserves. Hope this ramble helps, | $0.02 | Simon | | | | Dear Simon, Beautifull to see, how a man with your knowledge, and accordingly to that knowledge, has too little time for himself, to 'fix stuff properly'..merely ironic, life is indeed not without a sense of humor. ;-) The things you lay your finger upon, *are* the things that are going on... Sometimes it feels to me, somebody messed with time, and there are less hours in a day then there were before, but somehow, i am not able to prove it.. ;-), and i don't kow who to blame either... Maybe we are all responsible, and victims at the same time... There is a turn towards Linux noticeable: AMD, NVidia, Ati, HP, others will follow... You mention the proprietary, and the licensed stuff, truly a pain in the ass, but with some, (magic word) *Extra-time*, all(most) everything in your list is solvable... Old and new hardware is very very useable, even the newest Dual and Quad-core machines run, but the software ahs to be written, as with 64bit. But that functions apart from some off the things you also mentioned. Apart from Photoshop, there are Cad like: Solid works, and Inventor which licenses are very expensive, but you have to use them on a M$ platform... Well, i am very glad, there is not only M$, because i than would stop using a computer... ;-) - -- Have a nice day, M9. Now, is the only time that exists. ~ OS: Linux 2.6.24-rc8-git2-3-default x86_64 ~ Huidige gebruiker: monkey9@tribal-sfn2 ~ Systeem: openSUSE 11.0 (x86_64) Alpha1 ~ KDE: 3.5.8 "release 36" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.8 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkeaGTwACgkQX5/X5X6LpDh7xACgpVXxqD4vZXiEYxSfrf2Accj+ 5UEAoLYas7PwPA88ydRWKJmwJlZOuNLy =wpIt -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Hi Simon, Lincoln Rutledge Network Engineer OSC Networking 800-627-6420
Simon Roberts <thorpflyer@yahoo.com> 01/25/08 10:33 AM >>> OK, I've been wanting to answer this question for ages, but there's just so much to say. In the end, I've given up trying to say everything completely cohesively, and I'm just going to allow myself to ramble and hope it helps some. First, a little background. I have a pretty good computer background. I wrote 6502, Z80, 8088, 68000 and other machine languages starting 25 years ago. I was a programmer for 15 years, writing network protocol software before the TCP stack was generally available, Unix device drivers, and a bunch of distributed control systems. Eventually I moved to corporate teaching, which I still do. I was using Linux to
Sounds like you've worked on some cool stuff :) I wrote some Z80 assembler myself. I miss it. teach TCP and Unix system administration in 1994, and other than Linux, I'm mostly a Solaris body. I have 3 Linux systems at home, two of which dual-boot with windows so I can run Photoshop in a color managed environment. I use VMWare for some other windows stuff that's less crucial to me. I also have a dual processor SPARC/Solaris 10 system. I loath and detest bill gates and everything he stands for. I regularly point out to I'm old school too. But Suns and SPARCs are yesterday dude :) Linux and x86-64 are NOW! my students that his company is a marketing company (very effective one, sadly) not a technology company. I believe they've never invented anything good, and have damaged many, if not most, of the ideas they've "appropriated". Until about 6 months ago, I was on a one man crusade to try to get my friends all using Linux. Around about then (after one success,yay! :) I finally gave up :( I can't begin to tell you the heartache, sadness, and sense of failure I felt when I reached that decision. Anway, what follows are some of the key/memorable personal experiences that wore me down and made me give up. Please remember that I love Linux, I love the people who put their effort into creating and maintaining it, and I think it has improved tremendously in recent years. I blame nobody for the "weaknesses" outlined below, other than what I see as bill gates' unreasonable and amoral (but sadly, probably entirely legal) practices. It's hard to support computers for friends and family. I had to define a boundary in my life: no PC support off the clock. It miffed some people but I needed to do it. And I like life better :) Now, if they were running Linux, I would spend lots of time fixing things :) 1) Hardware issues. If you just walk into a store and ask for a machine that will be good to go with Linux, they'll look at you blankly. It's a major effort to check the details yourself. Most off the shelf machines don't tell you exactly what cards they contain, and then it's often hard to find the devices in the HCLs. New hardware--inevitably--is most likely to be unsupported or buggy. Finding the HCLs used to be hard. I just checked, and this seems to have been fixed (thanks someone! :) HCL is online, and I don't usually have access to the internet when I'm in a store browsing! Whichever way you slice it, having to care about the exact hardware is a pain. I don't see any way (other than having the leverage of micky$loth) to get round this, and I certainly laud the efforts that have been made to improve life This is true. 2) Photography related. I use Windows to run Photoshop CS2 in a color managed workflow. In this, Linux doesn't cut it for two reasons: Color management. I tried to work out how to do the LCMS stuff, and a bunch of related color management options I though I was looking at, and just gave up, too much like hard work. Also, I seem to have the wrong colorimeter hardware already and am not willing to pay all over again for something else. GIMP is only 8 bit. That's fire in theory, but when you mess with stuff much, you quickly run into posterization (I see this even in some professional's work and while those in question don't seem to care, I personally hate it). I don't know. 3) Irritations with web plugins. Idiots out there keep writing stuff that's windows only, and there always seems to be trouble trying to get the latest Flash player. When it's available, it's tricky to install. This is true. 4) Palm pilot-: Several versions of palm device just don't sync, needless to say, this includes some that matter to me. I don't know how to sync my palm and evolution-etc. with web calendars like google or yahoo. That's important to me. I gave up using my palm pilot because of this. Consequently, I'm appallingly badly organized and regularly double book myself and miss meetings. This is true. 5) Video; I have failed repeatedly to build a system that plays all reasonable kinds of video. Mostly this seems to be a deliberate policy on bill gates' part (and the lawyers and the evil patent system, of course). I've reached the point where I can do most file types with the exception of AVI with the type 9 codec. This is true. 6) Strange inconsistencies ("That can't happen"): These are really hard, time-consuming, and often fruitless to debug. My laptop (dual core 64bit Intel) won't shut down without crashing the kernel. It will hibernate, and the file system journaling means that I've been able to kill it when I have to shut it down completely, but it's still irritating, and I long-ago gave up trying to fix it. This is true. Updates that break things, the various methods that I've found my systems using to auto-patch seem prone to failure. Usually complaining about something incompatible. I have one machine (admittedly running 9.3) which has been trying to upgrade Mozilla for the last two years. I can't seem to stop it trying, the warning blob thingy always says updates are ready. I don't really care, but it's not reassuring. Biggest pain for me is that it seems like every time I decide I want to use/install/build a new piece of software, I have trouble with dependencies. I fetch a package, but then it won't install because something is missing, or the wrong version. I try to find the required stuff, but that won't install because something else is missing, or it's incompatible with something I already have. It might well be that I'm doing it all wrong, but I only have so much time to give to this stuff. Mostly I want a machine to just work. Usually, I give up and accept that I'm going to live without whatever new function it was that seemed exciting. All of which sounds like I'm really unimpressed with Linux. That's not the case. I know what work goes into this stuff, and I use it as much as possible anyway (the only things I do with Windows are run Photoshop, for the reasons given, and one check-writing program that I run under VMWare, because I always did, and GNUCash was too complicated to bother finding out about, and too much like hard work to migrate to). My problem, which is a huge personal disappointment, is that I realized about 6 months ago that I can't ask my friends to move to Linux. They just don't have what it takes still to cope. Me, sure, I can muddle through, but then again, I don't like to make this effort and I tend to accept restricted functionality as the price I pay to take my moral high ground and reject gates as much as possible. I also prefer the relative security that I get from avoiding "the Internet's petri dish" Generally, I would prefer to see less effort on "improvement" and more on stabilization. Pin down the compatibility issues (remember the Unix wars?--I do.) between versions of libblahdyblah or whatever, so I can just fetch a package and use it. Meanwhile, Linux seems to me to be a good choice for companies where one install effort can be rolled out to hundreds of users, but less viable for intermediate home users who want to do interesting and different things, but aren't able to help themselves. The really basic users, who browse, send email, write the odd document, and look at jpeg images from their cameras have no problem. I have one such friend that is completely computer illiterate and quite happy using OpenSUSE 10.1 with ICE window manager (old, weak hardware, couldn't run Gnome or KDE adequately). All other attempts to migrate my friends were met with legitimate objections that I couldn't counter. With thanks to all who've made this what it is, and with continuing faith that one day it'll be what it deserves to be, and have the acceptance and mainstream support it deserves. Hope this ramble helps, $0.02 Simon I'll repeat what I read in "The UNIX Hater's Handbook": "WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE" GPL is the borg, and all will be assimilated. It's happening now. I recently bought a VIC 20, which was my first computer. Then I looked at my junky Toshiba laptop. Remember those computers from the 1980's? It's not so bad on your OpenSUSE box now, is it? :) There is no resistance. I recently listened to an interview with Jeremy Allison from SAMBA, who explained why BSD is dead, and Microsoft is dying, and Linux is taking over the world. And you know what? It's true :) It's a wild ride, but it's okay. Sometimes it's even fun! All of the brokenness you mentioned is real. Have you ever read the LKML for a week or so? Or Alan Cox's web diary? Believe it, it's a wonder anything ever works at all. But you know what? It does. And a lot of things work REALLY WELL :) So put on your helmet and goggles, and hold on brother! Linc ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Jan 25, 2008 1:44 PM, Lincoln Rutledge <lincolnr@oar.net> wrote:
Hi Simon,
Lincoln Rutledge Network Engineer OSC Networking 800-627-6420
Simon Roberts <thorpflyer@yahoo.com> 01/25/08 10:33 AM >>> OK, I've been wanting to answer this question for ages, but there's just so much to say. In the end, I've given up trying to say everything completely cohesively, and I'm just going to allow myself to ramble and hope it helps some. First, a little background. I have a pretty good computer background. I wrote 6502, Z80, 8088, 68000 and other machine languages starting 25 years ago. I was a programmer for 15 years, writing network protocol software before the TCP stack was generally available, Unix device drivers, and a bunch of distributed control systems. Eventually I moved to corporate teaching, which I still do. I was using Linux to
Sounds like you've worked on some cool stuff :) I wrote some Z80 assembler myself. I miss it.
teach TCP and Unix system administration in 1994, and other than Linux, I'm mostly a Solaris body. I have 3 Linux systems at home, two of which dual-boot with windows so I can run Photoshop in a color managed environment. I use VMWare for some other windows stuff that's less crucial to me. I also have a dual processor SPARC/Solaris 10 system. I loath and detest bill gates and everything he stands for. I regularly point out to
I'm old school too. But Suns and SPARCs are yesterday dude :) Linux and x86-64 are NOW!
lawl. Dude Sun and Sarc are going no where any time soon... just the opposite... Sparc IV+ & Solaris 10 dance circles around Linux on any hardware.. You need to spend some time in a true top-tier enterprise class data center. Linux still has scores or limitations holding it back in the enterprise realm. There is a reason the stuff is expensive -- its damn good.
my students that his company is a marketing company (very effective one, sadly) not a technology company. I believe they've never invented anything good, and have damaged many, if not most, of the ideas they've "appropriated". Until about 6 months ago, I was on a one man crusade to try to get my friends all using Linux. Around about then (after one success,yay! :) I finally gave up :( I can't begin to tell you the heartache, sadness, and sense of failure I felt when I reached that decision. Anway, what follows are some of the key/memorable personal experiences that wore me down and made me give up. Please remember that I love Linux, I love the people who put their effort into creating and maintaining it, and I think it has improved tremendously in recent years. I blame nobody for the "weaknesses" outlined below, other than what I see as bill gates' unreasonable and amoral (but sadly, probably entirely legal) practices.
It's hard to support computers for friends and family. I had to define a boundary in my life: no PC support off the clock. It miffed some people but I needed to do it. And I like life better :) Now, if they were running Linux, I would spend lots of time fixing things :)
1) Hardware issues. If you just walk into a store and ask for a machine that will be good to go with Linux, they'll look at you blankly. It's a major effort to check the details yourself. Most off the shelf machines don't tell you exactly what cards they contain, and then it's often hard to find the devices in the HCLs. New hardware--inevitably--is most likely to be unsupported or buggy. Finding the HCLs used to be hard. I just checked, and this seems to have been fixed (thanks someone! :) HCL is online, and I don't usually have access to the internet when I'm in a store browsing! Whichever way you slice it, having to care about the exact hardware is a pain. I don't see any way (other than having the leverage of micky$loth) to get round this, and I certainly laud the efforts that have been made to improve life
This is true.
2) Photography related. I use Windows to run Photoshop CS2 in a color managed workflow. In this, Linux doesn't cut it for two reasons:
Color management. I tried to work out how to do the LCMS stuff, and a bunch of related color management options I though I was looking at, and just gave up, too much like hard work. Also, I seem to have the wrong colorimeter hardware already and am not willing to pay all over again for something else.
GIMP is only 8 bit. That's fire in theory, but when you mess with stuff much, you quickly run into posterization (I see this even in some professional's work and while those in question don't seem to care, I personally hate it).
I don't know.
3) Irritations with web plugins. Idiots out there keep writing stuff that's windows only, and there always seems to be trouble trying to get the latest Flash player. When it's available, it's tricky to install.
This is true.
4) Palm pilot-: Several versions of palm device just don't sync, needless to say, this includes some that matter to me. I don't know how to sync my palm and evolution-etc. with web calendars like google or yahoo. That's important to me. I gave up using my palm pilot because of this. Consequently, I'm appallingly badly organized and regularly double book myself and miss meetings.
This is true.
5) Video; I have failed repeatedly to build a system that plays all reasonable kinds of video. Mostly this seems to be a deliberate policy on bill gates' part (and the lawyers and the evil patent system, of course). I've reached the point where I can do most file types with the exception of AVI with the type 9 codec.
This is true.
6) Strange inconsistencies ("That can't happen"):
These are really hard, time-consuming, and often fruitless to debug. My laptop (dual core 64bit Intel) won't shut down without crashing the kernel. It will hibernate, and the file system journaling means that I've been able to kill it when I have to shut it down completely, but it's still irritating, and I long-ago gave up trying to fix it.
This is true.
Updates that break things, the various methods that I've found my systems using to auto-patch seem prone to failure. Usually complaining about something incompatible. I have one machine (admittedly running 9.3) which has been trying to upgrade Mozilla for the last two years. I can't seem to stop it trying, the warning blob thingy always says updates are ready. I don't really care, but it's not reassuring.
Biggest pain for me is that it seems like every time I decide I want to use/install/build a new piece of software, I have trouble with dependencies. I fetch a package, but then it won't install because something is missing, or the wrong version. I try to find the required stuff, but that won't install because something else is missing, or it's incompatible with something I already have. It might well be that I'm doing it all wrong, but I only have so much time to give to this stuff. Mostly I want a machine to just work. Usually, I give up and accept that I'm going to live without whatever new function it was that seemed exciting.
All of which sounds like I'm really unimpressed with Linux. That's not the case. I know what work goes into this stuff, and I use it as much as possible anyway (the only things I do with Windows are run Photoshop, for the reasons given, and one check-writing program that I run under VMWare, because I always did, and GNUCash was too complicated to bother finding out about, and too much like hard work to migrate to). My problem, which is a huge personal disappointment, is that I realized about 6 months ago that I can't ask my friends to move to Linux. They just don't have what it takes still to cope. Me, sure, I can muddle through, but then again, I don't like to make this effort and I tend to accept restricted functionality as the price I pay to take my moral high ground and reject gates as much as possible. I also prefer the relative security that I get from avoiding "the Internet's petri dish"
Generally, I would prefer to see less effort on "improvement" and more on stabilization. Pin down the compatibility issues (remember the Unix wars?--I do.) between versions of libblahdyblah or whatever, so I can just fetch a package and use it. Meanwhile, Linux seems to me to be a good choice for companies where one install effort can be rolled out to hundreds of users, but less viable for intermediate home users who want to do interesting and different things, but aren't able to help themselves. The really basic users, who browse, send email, write the odd document, and look at jpeg images from their cameras have no problem. I have one such friend that is completely computer illiterate and quite happy using OpenSUSE 10.1 with ICE window manager (old, weak hardware, couldn't run Gnome or KDE adequately). All other attempts to migrate my friends were met with legitimate objections that I couldn't counter.
With thanks to all who've made this what it is, and with continuing faith that one day it'll be what it deserves to be, and have the acceptance and mainstream support it deserves. Hope this ramble helps, $0.02 Simon
I'll repeat what I read in "The UNIX Hater's Handbook": "WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE" GPL is the borg, and all will be assimilated. It's happening now. I recently bought a VIC 20, which was my first computer. Then I looked at my junky Toshiba laptop. Remember those computers from the 1980's? It's not so bad on your OpenSUSE box now, is it? :) There is no resistance. I recently listened to an interview with Jeremy Allison from SAMBA, who explained why BSD is dead, and Microsoft is dying, and Linux is taking over the world. And you know what? It's true :) It's a wild ride, but it's okay. Sometimes it's even fun!
All of the brokenness you mentioned is real. Have you ever read the LKML for a week or so? Or Alan Cox's web diary? Believe it, it's a wonder anything ever works at all. But you know what? It does. And a lot of things work REALLY WELL :)
So put on your helmet and goggles, and hold on brother!
Linc
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On Fri, Jan 25, 2008 at 04:54:05PM -0600, Chuck wrote:
lawl. Dude Sun and Sarc are going no where any time soon... just the opposite... Sparc IV+ & Solaris 10 dance circles around Linux on any hardware..
They do? On what hardware? That doesn't match up with any benchmark I've ever seen run in the past few years.
You need to spend some time in a true top-tier enterprise class data center. Linux still has scores or limitations holding it back in the enterprise realm. There is a reason the stuff is expensive -- its damn good.
What are the limitations that you think Linux is having relating to Solaris that is holding it back? There are a few nicer clustering options for Solaris that people are working on addressing, but Linux has tons of things that Solaris just can't even do which are causing customers to drop Sun very quickly. Curious, greg k-h -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 25 January 2008 14:54, Chuck wrote:
...
I'm old school too. But Suns and SPARCs are yesterday dude :) Linux and x86-64 are NOW!
lawl. Dude Sun and Sarc are going no where any time soon... just the opposite... Sparc IV+ & Solaris 10 dance circles around Linux on any hardware.. You need to spend some time in a true top-tier enterprise class data center. Linux still has scores or limitations holding it back in the enterprise realm. There is a reason the stuff is expensive -- its damn good.
How do you explain the Googles and Amazons of this world, whose stock OS platform for customer-fronted services is Linux? I'm not saying Solaris is on its way out, but one can most certainly run very-large-scale enterprise operations on Linux. I tend to doubt it's "held back."
... -- Chuck Carson - Sr. Software Engineer Galileo Educational Solutions
Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 25 January 2008 03:42:16 pm Randall R Schulz wrote:
On Friday 25 January 2008 14:54, Chuck wrote:
...
I'm old school too. But Suns and SPARCs are yesterday dude :) Linux and x86-64 are NOW!
lawl. Dude Sun and Sarc are going no where any time soon... just the opposite... Sparc IV+ & Solaris 10 dance circles around Linux on any hardware.. You need to spend some time in a true top-tier enterprise class data center. Linux still has scores or limitations holding it back in the enterprise realm. There is a reason the stuff is expensive -- its damn good.
How do you explain the Googles and Amazons of this world, whose stock OS platform for customer-fronted services is Linux?
I'm not saying Solaris is on its way out, but one can most certainly run very-large-scale enterprise operations on Linux. I tend to doubt it's "held back."
I had an interesting discussion regarding my data center yeterday. While advocating Linux for the data center the topic was brought up that we should use a "true server" such as FreeBSD UNIX or another UNIX variant. I then reminded my peers that Linux runs several thousands of "true servers" and we should be the ones to talk, since we run Windows Workstations in our data center, with the exception of one ancient HP 3000. Oh, and FWIW, Amazon runs everything - Windows, Linux, UNIX, MacOS. They have no "platform of choice" and run "whatever works" for the API. I remember reading that one amazon.com webpage may be loaded from 50 different servers running ten different OS's and variants. I know this is off-topic, and we should probably be discussing beer or at least wet t-shirts, but.... -- k -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 25 January 2008 19:43, Kai Ponte wrote:
...
Oh, and FWIW, Amazon runs everything - Windows, Linux, UNIX, MacOS. They have no "platform of choice" and run "whatever works" for the API. I remember reading that one amazon.com webpage may be loaded from 50 different servers running ten different OS's and variants.
It's true there's a mix, but the workhorses of their on-line presence are all Linux. Their data warehouse is based on Oracle, but I'm not sure which OS platform runs it. Many desktops within the organization are Windows, of course, but the software developers mostly use Linux. They do use virtualization, but it's Xen and both the host and guests are Linux. But the preponderance of their operational IT infrastructure is vastly dominated by Linux. And yes, I worked for them as a software engineer for a year and a half (in 2005 and 2006), so I have first-hand experience.
...
-- k
Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Chuck wrote:
lawl. Dude Sun and Sarc are going no where any time soon... just the opposite... Sparc IV+ & Solaris 10 dance circles around Linux on any hardware.. You need to spend some time in a true top-tier enterprise class data center. Linux still has scores or limitations holding it back in the enterprise realm. There is a reason the stuff is expensive -- its damn good.
I work for a fortune 100 company, and we run AIX, HPUX, Solaris, and SuSE Enterprise Linux in our data centers. I have to smile at the idea that solaris is somehow more robust than linux. Solaris is great, but so is linux. More and more, we're moving apps off of the old school legacy unix platforms onto HP/Compaq servers running linux. And the results have been very very good. We have dozens of busy linux servers with over 500 days uptime - and the uptime champ, by far for our whole enterprise? Take a guess: root@ashpool:~> uptime 5:32pm up 1016 days 1:24, 1 user, load average: 2.47, 2.56, 2.36 An very busy old compaq 2450 running DB2, apache and websphere on SLES 9 Dude, there is *nothing* holding linux back here, other than fear and ignorance - and now that the SCO lawsuit has all but died, that fear is giving way to a new boldness - and I'm doing everything I can to fix the ignorance. Joe -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Joe Sloan wrote:
Chuck wrote:
lawl. Dude Sun and Sarc are going no where any time soon... just the opposite... Sparc IV+ & Solaris 10 dance circles around Linux on any hardware.. You need to spend some time in a true top-tier enterprise class data center. Linux still has scores or limitations holding it back in the enterprise realm. There is a reason the stuff is expensive -- its damn good.
I work for a fortune 100 company, and we run AIX, HPUX, Solaris, and SuSE Enterprise Linux in our data centers. I have to smile at the idea that solaris is somehow more robust than linux. Solaris is great, but so is linux.
More and more, we're moving apps off of the old school legacy unix platforms onto HP/Compaq servers running linux. And the results have been very very good.
We have dozens of busy linux servers with over 500 days uptime - and the uptime champ, by far for our whole enterprise? Take a guess:
root@ashpool:~> uptime 5:32pm up 1016 days 1:24, 1 user, load average: 2.47, 2.56, 2.36
An very busy old compaq 2450 running DB2, apache and websphere on SLES 9
Dude, there is *nothing* holding linux back here, other than fear and ignorance - and now that the SCO lawsuit has all but died, that fear is
It's dead. You can buy several shares of SCOX (oops, it doesn't have listing symbol anymore) for a penny. Maybe they should change the name to "Solidified Hydrogen"
giving way to a new boldness - and I'm doing everything I can to fix the ignorance.
Joe
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Joe Sloan schreef: | root@ashpool:~> uptime | 5:32pm up 1016 days 1:24, 1 user, load average: 2.47, 2.56, 2.36 More than 3 years, is quite impressive... | | An very busy old compaq 2450 running DB2, apache and websphere on SLES 9 | | Joe - -- Have a nice day, M9. Now, is the only time that exists. ~ OS: Linux 2.6.24-rc8-git2-3-default x86_64 ~ Huidige gebruiker: monkey9@tribal-sfn2 ~ Systeem: openSUSE 11.0 (x86_64) Alpha1 ~ KDE: 3.5.8 "release 36" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.8 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkebbQgACgkQX5/X5X6LpDgC1QCfdLW0im4vxi+WdK0JQCsSH9Mx yxsAnitpuymAZul/eVRSsFtF6p15qeDH =p75T -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
M9. pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
Joe Sloan schreef:
| root@ashpool:~> uptime | 5:32pm up 1016 days 1:24, 1 user, load average: 2.47, 2.56, 2.36
More than 3 years, is quite impressive...
It might be impressive, but it also shows that no kernel security updates have been performed in a looooog time which _could_ make the machine vulnerable to attacks. -- Ken Schneider SuSe since Version 5.2, June 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Ken Schneider wrote:
M9. pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
Joe Sloan schreef:
| root@ashpool:~> uptime | 5:32pm up 1016 days 1:24, 1 user, load average: 2.47, 2.56, 2.36
More than 3 years, is quite impressive...
It might be impressive, but it also shows that no kernel security updates have been performed in a looooog time which _could_ make the machine vulnerable to attacks.
Right, thekernel was updated in 2005 - there might be some sort of theoretical local vulnerability, but not every kernel security update is even relevant to our application. In the corporate world, you find that IT managers don't rush out and update software all that often. When something works, the attitude is, do not touch the production system. Joe -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Joe Sloan schreef: | Ken Schneider wrote: |> M9. pecked at the keyboard and wrote: |>> Joe Sloan schreef: |>> |>> | root@ashpool:~> uptime | 5:32pm up 1016 days 1:24, 1 user, |>> load average: 2.47, 2.56, 2.36 |>> |>> More than 3 years, is quite impressive... |>> |>> |> It might be impressive, but it also shows that no kernel security |> updates have been performed in a looooog time which _could_ make the |> machine vulnerable to attacks. | | | Right, thekernel was updated in 2005 - there might be some sort of | theoretical local vulnerability, but not every kernel security update is | even relevant to our application. | | In the corporate world, you find that IT managers don't rush out and | update software all that often. When something works, the attitude is, | do not touch the production system. | | Joe | | Which is the only right attitude imo..to keep things going. If something breaks, time is there to do the things that are nessesary. - -- Have a nice day, M9. Now, is the only time that exists. ~ OS: Linux 2.6.24-rc8-git2-3-default x86_64 ~ Huidige gebruiker: monkey9@tribal-sfn2 ~ Systeem: openSUSE 11.0 (x86_64) Alpha1 ~ KDE: 3.5.8 "release 36" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.8 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkebfvgACgkQX5/X5X6LpDhHWwCfQdkxylP2+2HXdVB9E6ejBQVX TPIAn3Rcv/mUiO+d7pFgXx4G1rKXaDWX =jKG2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
M9. pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
Joe Sloan schreef: | Ken Schneider wrote: |> M9. pecked at the keyboard and wrote: |>> Joe Sloan schreef: |>> |>> | root@ashpool:~> uptime | 5:32pm up 1016 days 1:24, 1 user, |>> load average: 2.47, 2.56, 2.36 |>> |>> More than 3 years, is quite impressive... |>> |>> |> It might be impressive, but it also shows that no kernel security |> updates have been performed in a looooog time which _could_ make the |> machine vulnerable to attacks. | | | Right, thekernel was updated in 2005 - there might be some sort of | theoretical local vulnerability, but not every kernel security update is | even relevant to our application. | | In the corporate world, you find that IT managers don't rush out and | update software all that often. When something works, the attitude is, | do not touch the production system. | | Joe |
We're also not talking about rushing out to update software for softwares sake. It's about applying critical security updates. Of course if the system is only an internal server it _might_ not be as critical. If the IT managers were aware that a critical security update was available and _not_ applied they would/should start asking why. -- Ken Schneider SuSe since Version 5.2, June 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
M9. wrote:
Joe Sloan schreef:
| root@ashpool:~> uptime | 5:32pm up 1016 days 1:24, 1 user, load average: 2.47, 2.56, 2.36
More than 3 years, is quite impressive...
Not quite. Three years is 1095 days, ignoring leap years. -- Use OpenOffice.org <http://www.openoffice.org> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 26 January 2008 10:07, James Knott wrote:
M9. wrote:
Joe Sloan schreef: | root@ashpool:~> uptime | 5:32pm up 1016 days 1:24, 1 user, load average: 2.47, 2.56, | 2.36
More than 3 years, is quite impressive...
Not quite. Three years is 1095 days, ignoring leap years.
And we have an upper bound on kernel security fixes applied to this system... RRS -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Chuck wrote:
On Jan 25, 2008 1:44 PM, Lincoln Rutledge <lincolnr@oar.net> wrote:
Hi Simon,
teach TCP and Unix system administration in 1994, and other than Linux, I'm mostly a Solaris body. I have 3 Linux systems at home, two of which dual-boot with windows so I can run Photoshop in a color managed environment. I use VMWare for some other windows stuff that's less crucial to me. I also have a dual processor SPARC/Solaris 10 system. I loath and detest bill gates and everything he stands for. I regularly point out to
I'm old school too. But Suns and SPARCs are yesterday dude :) Linux and x86-64 are NOW!
lawl. Dude Sun and Sarc are going no where any time soon... just the opposite... Sparc IV+ & Solaris 10 dance circles around Linux on any hardware.. You need to spend some time in a true top-tier enterprise class data center. Linux still has scores or limitations holding it back in the enterprise realm. There is a reason the stuff is expensive -- its damn good.
That might have been true 5 years ago.... Sun is going to abandon the SPARC soon. As much as I despise the Intel x86 with its architecture and annoying instruction set, it IS the future of high- end computing. HP-UX was ported from PA-RISC to x86 AIX is being ported from the p5 to x86 Solaris has been ported to x86 -- and the x86 version is no longer a crufty toy like it used to be -- Sun has thrown in a well-rounded effort to finally provide the x86 version with all the drivers as the Sparc version. The only major Unix that I'm unsure of at this point is SGI. Sun doesn't have enough sales to keep the SPARC performance competitive with HP and IBM machines loaded up with x86's which have the development overhead spread over hundreds of millions of units rather than tens of thousands for SPARC and whatever SGI us using lately. Intel and AMD won the CPU wars. (and the field can't be reduced below two, because every competent military purchasing department on the planet requires that all electronic components be "2nd-sourced" -- so if AMD fails, then Intel is cut out of that lucrative market until such time that another company is up and running as a "2nd source" of Intel-like CPUs -- This is why Intel keeps AMD abreast of their future designs -- if AMD can't duplicate Intel functionality, then Intel loses). -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Aaron Kulkis wrote:
Intel and AMD won the CPU wars. (and the field can't be reduced below two, because every competent military purchasing department on the planet requires that all electronic components be "2nd-sourced" -- so if AMD fails, then Intel is cut out of that lucrative market until such time that another company is up and running as a "2nd source" of Intel-like CPUs -- This is why Intel keeps AMD abreast of their future designs -- if AMD can't duplicate Intel functionality, then Intel loses).
According to an IBM Linux presentation I attended a couple of years ago, IBM manufactures many CPU's for AMD. This means that even if AMD fails, the chips are still being made elsewhere. Chips these days are designed using standard libraries, which make it easy for another company to start producing CPU's from a failed company. IIRC, in the 64 bit world, it's Intel following AMD, not the otherway around. -- Use OpenOffice.org <http://www.openoffice.org> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
James Knott wrote:
Aaron Kulkis wrote:
Intel and AMD won the CPU wars. (and the field can't be reduced below two, because every competent military purchasing department on the planet requires that all electronic components be "2nd-sourced" -- so if AMD fails, then Intel is cut out of that lucrative market until such time that another company is up and running as a "2nd source" of Intel-like CPUs -- This is why Intel keeps AMD abreast of their future designs -- if AMD can't duplicate Intel functionality, then Intel loses).
According to an IBM Linux presentation I attended a couple of years ago, IBM manufactures many CPU's for AMD. This means that even if AMD fails, the chips are still being made elsewhere.
Chips these days are designed using standard libraries, which make it easy for another company to start producing CPU's from a failed company.
IIRC, in the 64 bit world, it's Intel following AMD, not the otherway around.
Kind of ironic, isn't it. And AMD is generally less expensive, too. Other than this laptop I'm on, I've never owned an Intel CPU... my first machine was Cyrix, and then I switched to AMD. Intel has always had the worst price/performance evaluation. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Aaron Kulkis wrote:
Other than this laptop I'm on, I've never owned an Intel CPU... my first machine was Cyrix, and then I switched to AMD. Intel has always had the worst price/performance evaluation.
My first CPU was an Intel, an 8080 in my IMSAI 8080. My 2nd was an 8088, in an XT clone, which I replaced with a NEC V20. Currently, my main system is an AMD64 4000+. -- Use OpenOffice.org <http://www.openoffice.org> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
James Knott wrote:
Aaron Kulkis wrote:
Other than this laptop I'm on, I've never owned an Intel CPU... my first machine was Cyrix, and then I switched to AMD. Intel has always had the worst price/performance evaluation.
My first CPU was an Intel, an 8080 in my IMSAI 8080. My 2nd was an 8088, in an XT clone, which I replaced with a NEC V20. Currently, my main system is an AMD64 4000+.
From when I first started programming, I always had access to quite powerful machines, and it wasn't until the mid-1990's that PC's came within an order of magnitude of what I was using outside the home. Before that, I had no interest in actually owning my own computer. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Aaron Kulkis wrote:
Before that, I had no interest in actually owning my own computer.
What I find amusing is that I'm running the same OS as a super computer! -- Use OpenOffice.org <http://www.openoffice.org> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Fri, Jan 25, 2008 07:33:38 AM -0800, Simon Roberts (thorpflyer@yahoo.com) wrote:
OK, I've been wanting to answer this question for ages, but there's just so much to say.
Thanks for sharing these thoughts! Just one comment:
All other attempts to migrate my friends were met with legitimate objections that I couldn't counter.
I have recently written a "How to turn into Free Software supporters people who couldn't care less" with some practical advice at http://digifreedom.net/node/103 . Judging from your very practical and detailed notes, it is likely that that advice doesn't apply to at least some of your friends, but there is one thing which is still worth trying, namely the first paragraph: "Focus on making people support Free Software, rather than using it" At least in this particular moment (cfr OpenXML) it is quite urgent that as many people as possible ask for adoption of really open ICTstandards and Free Software (in this order) in Public Administrations, even if they don't use Linux and don't plan to use it. Marco -- Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how software is used *around* you: http://digifreedom.net/node/84 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Simon Roberts wrote:
OK, I've been wanting to answer this question for ages, but there's
<snip>
1) Hardware issues. If you just walk into a store and ask for a machine that will be good to go with Linux, they'll look at you blankly. It's a major effort to check the details yourself. Most off
In a long experience in support as well as development this is not *just* a linux issue, you get as much and sometime more grief with M$ systems with manufacturers being lazy or incompetent in supplying drivers that will work with various OS versions. The finger should be mostly pointed at the hardware people in this case...
2) Photography related. I use Windows to run Photoshop CS2 in a color managed workflow. In this, Linux doesn't cut it for two reasons:
<snip>
GIMP is only 8 bit. That's fire in theory, but when you mess with stuff much, you quickly run into posterization (I see this even in some professional's work and while those in question don't seem to care, I personally hate it).
Gimp 8 bit only !?! clarify context and format, seems a very broad and sweeping generalisation .... I find gimp a bit counter intuitive on occasion but I also have the same problem with photoshop. To be honest I only worked with the driver and graphic library side in the (very distant) past, and rarely do things with actual images...
3) Irritations with web plugins. Idiots out there keep writing stuff that's windows only, and there always seems to be trouble trying to get the latest Flash player. When it's available, it's tricky to install.
Personally, must remember to kill things like flash player, one of my pet hates is going to website and finding that need to load the latest flash player to even get in..., I usually want info, not pretty moving pictures... </rant>
4) Palm pilot-: Several versions of palm device just don't sync, needless to say, this includes some that matter to me. I don't know how to sync my palm and evolution-etc. with web calendars like google or yahoo. That's important to me. I gave up using my palm pilot because of this. Consequently, I'm appallingly badly organized and regularly double book myself and miss meetings.
PDA synchronisation is a complex area, Palm originally went the direction that built their own environment within Windows and it worked well (pity PalmOS was so limited). Symbian/PSION went the route of integrating with the Windows desktop and often it was more than a bit unreliable. Both approaches are proprietorial, and Linux implementations were largely reverse engineered (at least in the Symbian/PSION world). A more modern route is SyncML and things have improved in the Linux world in part because the specification is open. I would take a good look at egroupware, the project management side looks like it has a lot of potential and the basic SyncML support is there. An alternative for synchronisation is funambol. To be honest I would not want to put my personal schedule on third party supplier... Calender synchronisation is still a problem area on all platforms. The OMA SyncML specification is strong on the communication protocol but there are aspects of the Server and Client responsibilities that are not closely specified and are down the application developer.
5) Video; I have failed repeatedly to build a system that plays all reasonable kinds of video. Mostly this seems to be a deliberate policy on bill gates' part (and the lawyers and the evil patent system, of course). I've reached the point where I can do most file types with the exception of AVI with the type 9 codec.
I first saw video on a PC in about 1990, at the time I thought it looked pretty exciting, but now I rather wonder about its value.
6) Strange inconsistencies ("That can't happen"):
Oh come on ! Again from past support experience this is not *just* a linux issue... it surprising how inventive how people are at crocking their PC no matter the platform... at least with Linux one has the chance of finding out what happened and fix it without having to rebuild the kit and caboodle from scratch!!! M$ windows will work when you turn it on but take a look at link below http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/01/how_green_and_putrefying/ <snip>
Updates that break things, the various methods that I've found my
Think M$ patch Tuesday here.... :-) <snip> - -- ============================================================================== I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup ============================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHmyjqasN0sSnLmgIRAsKLAKDOw71b/lCPQzadm8ufpgCxK6CquwCcC2lx eQ23yxDj7EnXiyTElYaAvGs= =9o0E -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (15)
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Aaron Kulkis -
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M9. -
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Stevens