Problems Linux Enthusiasts Refuse to Address
Michael Haney
I totally agree with everything in this article. The uber geeks
aren't alone in the Linux community anymore, and they need to start
addressing the needs of new users. In other words, its not your
private playground anymore. I especially love this part...
> I'm sorry, but I think in 2011 we have outgrown statements like "it's not Windows" and "visit the forums for help." Providing a simple notice on the distribution websites indicating that self-installation is to be an "as is" type of deal, would provide some much needed reprieve for newbies everywhere.
--
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking
of morality by religion." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and
politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place
for it in the endeavor of science. " ~ Carl Sagan
Visit My Site: http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1
To Contact Me:
http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1/zorch-central---contacts
Free Your PC from the Bondage of Windows http://www.ubuntu.com
--
sounder mailing list
sou...@lists.ubuntu.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/sounder
Michael Haney
> I totally agree with this article, Michael. We in the community sit by
> and complain about how much we wish adoption would be greater yet we're
> doing VERY little to make it easier or newbies to come on board. It'
> just a step up from the 'I don't care if you use it or not, I write it
> for those smart enough to figure it out' mentality that used so permeate
> the community a few years ago,
>
> As a Linux software developer, I've made it my goal to make user
> friendly software that interest general consumers. Linux shouldn't just
> be about super geeks anymore. It's time to come out of the basement. lol
>
> Thanks for the article,
> Anthony
>
You're welcome. As an intermediate Linux user this is also very
important to me. Because there are things that I don't know how to do
still, and some of the things that are left out of the Ubuntu UI
and/or the manual (mostly concerning the lack of any ability to change
your monitor settings) were really frustrating for me. For a newbie,
I can tell you it would be a roadblock that would turn them off of
Linux probably forever.
That's unacceptable, and the community shouldn't allow it to happen
but it does. Then they bitch about Linux not being adopted as much as
they'd like. Its little things like this that would go a long way
towards making it easier for non-geeks to adopt Linux. Having a "this
is not windows" mentality doesn't serve anyone and only hurts Linux in
the end.
Avi Greenbury
> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3929866/
>
> I totally agree with everything in this article.
Really? At the risk of coming across as some sort of an uber geek I
thought most of those problems were fairly well solved by now? It's been
a long time since I've had a bit of hardware that didn't work in Linux
out of the box, and I've never got into the habit of checking
compatibility first.
There *already is* a 'simple notice on the distribution websites
indicating that self-installation is to be an "as is" type of deal';
it's the top of the GPL. But it's no more 'as is' than anything else -
no OS comes with built-in support, and I don't see where the expectation
that they would comes from, especially from someone who's previously
used one of them.
I think "Linux brand peripherals" will do the same wonderful thing as
Apple managed with their Apple hardware branding - so many people assume
there's something fundamentally different about macs, so they can't
possibly work with commodity hardware. Linux hardware support is *good*,
I don't think we need to pretend it isn't by creating a 'Mad fo Linux'
line of peripherals. What would be nice it to get the Tux logos
alongside the 'Certified for Windows' icons, but that requires someone
to actually test the stuff.
I do love the idea that, in his pursuit of a linux for non-uber-geeks,
he reckons linux PCs should be home-built, as if there's some
fundamental wrongness with any hardware that's been put together to fit
Windows.
> The uber geeks
> aren't alone in the Linux community anymore, and they need to start
> addressing the needs of new users.
No they don't.
--
Avi.
Liam Proven
> Michael Haney wrote:
>>
>> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3929866/
>>
>> I totally agree with everything in this article.
>
> Really? At the risk of coming across as some sort of an uber geek I thought
> most of those problems were fairly well solved by now? It's been a long time
> since I've had a bit of hardware that didn't work in Linux out of the box,
> and I've never got into the habit of checking compatibility first.
You're lucky. I'll give you the last example to try my patience: the
MSI Wind Top all-in-one touchscreen PC. The touchscreen works, but the
directions are reverse: move your finger left, the pointer goes right.
Move it down, it goes up. Completely useless.
The extant drivers use HAL and only work up to about Ubuntu 9.04 or something.
I spent 2 or 3 days on this and in the end sent the machine back as
unfit for purpose.
In recent months, I have had serious issues with notebook Wifi
adaptors, Ethernet adaptors and webcams, as well.
It is /not/ a resolved issue. Not even close.
--
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lpr...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpr...@gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • MSN: lpr...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508
Alan Pope
> You're lucky. I'll give you the last example to try my patience: the
> MSI Wind Top all-in-one touchscreen PC. The touchscreen works, but the
> directions are reverse: move your finger left, the pointer goes right.
> Move it down, it goes up. Completely useless.
>
I had a similar issue with my Toshiba convertible thing. If you used
xrandr to rotate the screen 90 degrees then the screen would rotate
fine, but the touch screen would not. However there is a wacom tool
which can rotate the tablet, to get them back in sync.
e.g.
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/linuxwacom/index.php?title=Rotation
Maybe there are similar tools that could have helped on your MSI Wind thing.
Al.
David Gerard
>> Really? At the risk of coming across as some sort of an uber geek I thought
>> most of those problems were fairly well solved by now? It's been a long time
>> since I've had a bit of hardware that didn't work in Linux out of the box,
>> and I've never got into the habit of checking compatibility first.
> You're lucky. I'll give you the last example to try my patience: the
> MSI Wind Top all-in-one touchscreen PC. The touchscreen works, but the
> directions are reverse: move your finger left, the pointer goes right.
> Move it down, it goes up. Completely useless.
J. Random Hardware on Linux either works perfectly or there's no hope
whatsoever, with very little in-between.
The Linux hardware problem is that the hardware manufacturers don't
care about Linux the way they do about Windows, so don't bend over
backwards to get a driver into Linux and userland controls into the
distros the way they do to have a Windows driver and controls ready
for Windows. This is not something the distros can do a huge amount
about.
Binary drivers on CD for Linux would duplicate the workaround used for
Windows, but binary drivers for Linux are an example of something that
people who think they want them are actually wrong about wanting,
because they will temporarily solve a small problem at the serious
expense of the whole thing.
Note that this is mostly a problem on the desktop - a server
manufacturer whose x86 box doesn't work immaculately in Linux is
*dead*. So your new server will work pretty much perfectly, with very
few exceptions.
The solution:
* more devices using Linux
* more GPL enforcement on them, meaning the code is available to the rest of us.
This is not fast, but it does have the advantage of actually working.
- d.
Michael Haney
> On 5 April 2011 08:50, Avi Greenbury <li...@avi.co> wrote:
>> Michael Haney wrote:
>>>
>>> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3929866/
>>>
>>> I totally agree with everything in this article.
>>
>> Really? At the risk of coming across as some sort of an uber geek I thought
>> most of those problems were fairly well solved by now? It's been a long time
>> since I've had a bit of hardware that didn't work in Linux out of the box,
>> and I've never got into the habit of checking compatibility first.
>
> You're lucky. I'll give you the last example to try my patience: the
> MSI Wind Top all-in-one touchscreen PC. The touchscreen works, but the
> directions are reverse: move your finger left, the pointer goes right.
> Move it down, it goes up. Completely useless.
>
> The extant drivers use HAL and only work up to about Ubuntu 9.04 or something.
>
> I spent 2 or 3 days on this and in the end sent the machine back as
> unfit for purpose.
>
> In recent months, I have had serious issues with notebook Wifi
> adaptors, Ethernet adaptors and webcams, as well.
>
> It is /not/ a resolved issue. Not even close.
>
Correct, I ran into this issue trying to get the wifi on my Acer
laptop to work in Ubuntu. There is also the issue of the feature
being "removed" that allowed you to select what monitor you are using
so you can select the correct screen resolution. For newbies this can
be a crippling issue that makes them go back to Windows. Again, its
an unacceptable and totally avoidable problem. Basically the
"feature" should never have been removed since it is so vital.
--
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking
of morality by religion." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and
politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place
for it in the endeavor of science. " ~ Carl Sagan
Visit My Site: http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1
To Contact Me:
http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1/zorch-central---contacts
Free Your PC from the Bondage of Windows http://www.ubuntu.com
--
John McCabe-Dansted
> J. Random Hardware on Linux either works perfectly or there's no hope
> whatsoever, with very little in-between.
Retry,
Reboot,
Reinstall the Latest Mainline Kernel from
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
Works for me in at least 50% of cases. Much of the problem I have is
that Ubuntu is shipping kernels that are older than my hardware.
--
John C. McCabe-Dansted
David Gerard
> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 7:52 PM, David Gerard <dge...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> J. Random Hardware on Linux either works perfectly or there's no hope
>> whatsoever, with very little in-between.
> Retry,
> Reboot,
> Reinstall the Latest Mainline Kernel from
> http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
> Works for me in at least 50% of cases. Much of the problem I have is
> that Ubuntu is shipping kernels that are older than my hardware.
Are you running Lucid? Then that wouldn't be surprising.
One of the things Red Hat does for RHEL is backport new drivers to old
kernel versions - so you can run RHEL5, but if you're running the
latest version your shiny new server will likely work.
Canonical will need to do something similar for Ubuntu Server to be a
serious contender. Though running in a VM makes life a lot easier for
hardware support, e.g. my work is about to shift all its hosting to
Ubuntu VMs.
I'd expect that the smarter hardware manufacturers would help in such
backporting efforts as well, if they want their server to run those
OSes. This is the bit where working with manufacturers is really
important for Canonical.
- d.
Michael Haney
> On 5 April 2011 15:08, John McCabe-Dansted <gma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 7:52 PM, David Gerard <dge...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> J. Random Hardware on Linux either works perfectly or there's no hope
>>> whatsoever, with very little in-between.
>
>> Retry,
>> Reboot,
>> Reinstall the Latest Mainline Kernel from
>> http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
>> Works for me in at least 50% of cases. Much of the problem I have is
>> that Ubuntu is shipping kernels that are older than my hardware.
>
>
> Are you running Lucid? Then that wouldn't be surprising.
>
> One of the things Red Hat does for RHEL is backport new drivers to old
> kernel versions - so you can run RHEL5, but if you're running the
> latest version your shiny new server will likely work.
>
> Canonical will need to do something similar for Ubuntu Server to be a
> serious contender. Though running in a VM makes life a lot easier for
> hardware support, e.g. my work is about to shift all its hosting to
> Ubuntu VMs.
>
> I'd expect that the smarter hardware manufacturers would help in such
> backporting efforts as well, if they want their server to run those
> OSes. This is the bit where working with manufacturers is really
> important for Canonical.
>
Isn't that the direction enterprise is going anyway? Server virtualization.
Where one or two machines can replace four or five machines running
multiple VMs at a time, with each VM doing a different job. I see a
lot about this in emails I get from ZDnet.
--
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking
of morality by religion." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and
politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place
for it in the endeavor of science. " ~ Carl Sagan
Visit My Site: http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1
To Contact Me:
http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1/zorch-central---contacts
Free Your PC from the Bondage of Windows http://www.ubuntu.com
--
David Gerard
> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 11:06 AM, David Gerard <dge...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Canonical will need to do something similar for Ubuntu Server to be a
>> serious contender. Though running in a VM makes life a lot easier for
>> hardware support, e.g. my work is about to shift all its hosting to
>> Ubuntu VMs.
> Isn't that the direction enterprise is going anyway? Server virtualization.
> Where one or two machines can replace four or five machines running
> multiple VMs at a time, with each VM doing a different job.
This is particularly important for Windows, where one box-one function
is the only way to get a reliable system. It's less important for
Unix. But yeah.
> I see a
> lot about this in emails I get from ZDnet.
Beware ZDnet. The entire economics of the tech press revolves around
being cheap diseased whores - no separation between editorial and
advertising, blatantly trolling for ad-banner clicks with
pseudo-controversial articles.
There are individual tech press journalists who I'd trust to talk to
(waves to Liam), but in general the tech press are candy at best and
to be ignored.
Rant about how Wikipedia should have ignored the tech press from the
start and stuck strictly to the academic press:
http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2008/12/31/on-dealing-with-the-press/
The tech press is the canonical example of "just because someone pays
you attention, doesn't mean you should take them seriously."
The scary thing is that the tech press is economically viable. This
does not augur well for the rest of journalism.
- d.
Samuel Thurston
On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 9:08 PM, Michael Haney <thez...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3929866/
>
> I totally agree with everything in this article. The uber geeks
> aren't alone in the Linux community anymore, and they need to start
> addressing the needs of new users. In other words, its not your
> private playground anymore. I especially love this part...
>
>> I'm sorry, but I think in 2011 we have outgrown statements like "it's not Windows" and "visit the forums for help." Providing a simple notice on the distribution websites indicating that self-installation is to be an "as is" type of deal, would provide some much needed reprieve for newbies everywhere.
I think "it's not windows" is fairly obvious. "Visit the forums for
help" is something I often say to windows users as well. As to
self-installation being "as-is"... I cannot enumerate the users who
have gotten used machines with a "fresh install" of windows that
didn't use the OEM discs. As a result, they rightly complain that
sound, wireless, pointing devices, etc. don't work correctly. I think
in 2011 it's time to stop holding Linux to a standard that doesn't
exist anywhere outside the sealed-box hardware monoculture of Apple.
Here's another bit from the article:
"I'm not talking about dumbing anything down, mind you. No, I simply
want to see all of us decide that we either are going to start taking
our platform seriously or opt to forgo the usual long-winded speech
about how superior it is in comparison to the alternatives."
Do people really still give long-winded speeches about the superiority
of Linux? I have done my share of zealotry over the years, but I have
learned a valuable lesson: Linux is not for everyone. Hardcore
gamers? pretty much no. Anyone who needs to use a specialty app for
which there is no adequate Linux analogue? definitely not. People who
want things to just work without any tinkering? only if they are
willing to pay a consultant (I charge by the hour.) Software freedom
purists who are willing to jump through a few hoops to have an
unprecedented level of customization and functionality? YOU BETCHA.
It wasn't always true: there was a time not all that long ago when
Linux really was a tinkerers-only party. Undoubtedly over time some
of the above statements may no longer hold true.
I think the idea of "getting serious about our platform" is a great
one, as well as being realistic about what it is and what it isn't.
If your grandparents/non-techie cousins or whatever only use basic
apps and don't have established application preferences, the
conversion can go smoothly. If Uncle Steve absolutely needs peachtree
to handle his existing accounting files, ask: Do you feel like
tinkering with a compatibility layer in order to make a required app
work? If the answer is not a relatively emphatic "yes",
fuhgettaboutit.
David Gerard
> I think
> in 2011 it's time to stop holding Linux to a standard that doesn't
> exist anywhere outside the sealed-box hardware monoculture of Apple.
While this does seem unfair, we need to consider the model for
disruption from below: the disruptor is (a) cheap (b) does some
important thing *better* than the incumbent.
This is why Linux has taken over *everything* outside the desktop.
Your phone, your *television* run Linux.
So to take over the desktop, it does in fact need to succeed in some
respect that is sufficient to push it forward.
The year of the Linux desktop was 2007. I say this because that was
the year when it was finally price competition for Windows - with
reports of Microsoft charging $0 to $5 for XP on netbooks, just to
keep Linux the hell off them. Before that, OEMs were at their mercy.
This was bad enough for it to show up in Microsoft's financial
statements of the time.
So, price was actually enough at that time - we didn't win the
desktop, but we gave it a damn good shake. What other thing could
Linux do ridiculously better to beat Windows?
Ubuntu is taking a plausible approach: the Mac has the slickest design
and Microsoft has proven utterly unable to compete, so apply design
skills to the problem. This has variable results, e.g. Unity doesn't
work properly, and even if it did it's deliberately missing far too
much actual functionality. But this is why we have many distros.
> "I'm not talking about dumbing anything down, mind you. No, I simply
> want to see all of us decide that we either are going to start taking
> our platform seriously or opt to forgo the usual long-winded speech
> about how superior it is in comparison to the alternatives."
This is an example of what I meant by the tech press and ad-banner
trolling for clicks. These are the words of a professional troll.
> If Uncle Steve absolutely needs peachtree
> to handle his existing accounting files, ask: Do you feel like
> tinkering with a compatibility layer in order to make a required app
> work? If the answer is not a relatively emphatic "yes",
> fuhgettaboutit.
People don't seem to realise just how good Wine is these days. The
apps that don't Just Work tend to be (a) large (b) recent. But the
thing keeping someone on Windows is more often that Just One App that
they can't do without - and that app will usually work flawlessly in
Wine. YMMV, of course, but it's *always* worth a try.
- d.
David Gerard
> So, price was actually enough at that time - we didn't win the
> desktop, but we gave it a damn good shake. What other thing could
> Linux do ridiculously better to beat Windows?
[...]
> People don't seem to realise just how good Wine is these days. The
> apps that don't Just Work tend to be (a) large (b) recent. But the
> thing keeping someone on Windows is more often that Just One App that
> they can't do without - and that app will usually work flawlessly in
> Wine. YMMV, of course, but it's *always* worth a try.
It occurs to me that a frontal assault on their mainstay might be fun.
Businesses still run on XP. Approximately no-one has moved to Vista or
7. Even on new machines, which MS credits as shipped copies of 7,
downgrading to XP is de rigeur.
They also run on MS Office. Your desktop in most offices will be XP
with MS Office. Many will give you Firefox as well, due to user
clamour for something that works.
Office, Outlook and Firefox on XP = standard business desktop for the
past several years.
So the suggestion is: how can Linux be a better upgrade from XP than 7 is?
This is trickier than it looks. LibreOffice is slightly nicer to use
than OpenOffice, but has a long way to go. MS Office is really very
usable indeed, for all its instability and bugginess, and experienced
MS Office users tend to *hate* OOo. Serious usability and
compatibility work will be needed to knock over the incumbent here.
Outlook and Excel are the two applications that need drop-in
replacements that are better in some important way. The reason for
these two is that they are apps actually used by the people who sign
the cheques, not bought by them and inflicted on minions. They need
disruptive replacements that do better on more than price in some
important way.
(We would *ideally* need a drop-in replacement for Outlook (that will
work flawlessly with Exchange) *and* a drop-in replacement for
Exchange (that will work flawlessly with Outlook). Many companies have
dashed themselves to death against those two rocks in the last decade;
if we can work around this replacement, it would be good to do so.)
Anything I've missed?
Michael Haney
There's a channel on Youtube dedicated to Linux gaming and it often
has videos of Windows games running Wine. The most recent were Dead
Space, Starcraft 2 and Call of Duty 4. I used to play Guild Wars via
Wine on my current Linux box. But, the machine is getting old, the
video card is an 8xAGP Nvidia Geforce FX 5600, and the processor is a
single-core 32-bit 1.2GHz Athlon XP. It doesn't have the hardware to
run any of the modern games. If I had the money I'd build a new
gaming system using Linux and Wine.
--
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking
of morality by religion." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and
politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place
for it in the endeavor of science. " ~ Carl Sagan
Visit My Site: http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1
To Contact Me:
http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1/zorch-central---contacts
Free Your PC from the Bondage of Windows http://www.ubuntu.com
--
Dotan Cohen
> What would be nice it to get the Tux logos alongside the 'Certified for
> Windows' icons, but that requires someone to actually test the stuff.
>
It would take for us to write to hardware manufactures and ask for
Linux support. I try to write to one a week, but it usually turns out
to be closer to one per month.
Seriously, pick a piece of hardware at random and write to the
manufacturer asking if it supports Linux. If half the people on this
list did that once a month, in two years we would see Tux logos
everywhere.
--
Dotan Cohen
http://gibberish.co.il
http://what-is-what.com
Michael Haney
> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 10:50, Avi Greenbury <li...@avi.co> wrote:
>> What would be nice it to get the Tux logos alongside the 'Certified for
>> Windows' icons, but that requires someone to actually test the stuff.
>>
>
> It would take for us to write to hardware manufactures and ask for
> Linux support. I try to write to one a week, but it usually turns out
> to be closer to one per month.
>
> Seriously, pick a piece of hardware at random and write to the
> manufacturer asking if it supports Linux. If half the people on this
> list did that once a month, in two years we would see Tux logos
> everywhere.
>
A friend of mine pointed this out to me. He's a die hard Mac user, BTW.
He said that one of the major strengths of Linux is actually one of
its greatest weaknesses, and that is its immense diversity.
For a veteran member of the Linux community understanding which distro
is best for their needs is easy. For a newbie understand which of the
hundreds of competing distros out there is the one for them is a
daunting and sometimes frightening task. Then, there are
compatibility issues, which distro is using which version kernel,
which distro is using which version libraries, which distro is using
which package management system, and for a newbie understanding what
all that means is overwhelming.
There is very little standardization among the hundreds of distros out
there. This is one of the primary weaknesses of Linux, its heavily
splintered. This has started happening to Android, and Google is
putting their foot down to stop it.
--
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking
of morality by religion." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and
politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place
for it in the endeavor of science. " ~ Carl Sagan
Visit My Site: http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1
To Contact Me:
http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1/zorch-central---contacts
Free Your PC from the Bondage of Windows http://www.ubuntu.com
--
David Gerard
> He said that one of the major strengths of Linux is actually one of
> its greatest weaknesses, and that is its immense diversity.
[...]
> There is very little standardization among the hundreds of distros out
> there. This is one of the primary weaknesses of Linux, its heavily
> splintered. This has started happening to Android, and Google is
> putting their foot down to stop it.
As I've pointed out before on this list, there is no way to stop this
- "reduce diversity" means, in practice, "make people stop using what
works for them." This, unsurprisingly, fails to have much effect.
(In practice, there are very few significant distros. There are
hundreds of fringe players, but only a few with any userbase or
significant mindshare.)
So given this is not optional, anything that's going to work is going
to have to use this as a strength rather than a weakness. And in fact
this is precisely why Linux has taken over *everything* except the
desktop: because it is protean and endlessly adaptable.
- d.
Douglas Pollard
come from in using a desk top. I started out using a Texas instrument
computer with no programs no hard drives only tape drives and almost no
memory.
Microsoft came out with 3.0 and 3.1 shortly after. I thought they
were wonderful I had an IBM machine with a hard drive and Windows was
great. After I sold my buisness fooling with my desk top became a hobby.
After windows 97 I began fooling with Debian. It was more than I wanted
to struggle with. I did like the ( misguided ) idea that it was being
done by a bunch of hobbyists. Along came Ubuntu and windows 98 I kept
fooling with both. I now use Ubuntu and do video with it. Works great I
like Corel auto painter in xp. Does a few things I want to do. Tried it
in Wine without any luck. MY point is wine would not have brought me
over from widows. This is what Ubuntu needs to do I don't think wine
will help.I have a good friend who has been using Windows from the
beginning and he thinks I am crazy for fooling with Linux and he thinks
that anyone that uses apple is crazy. He will tell me that he is not
wedd to windows but there is nothing else out there. This is the problem
I think, It's one of marketing. I can't help but admire Bill Gates in
that he has been a marketing genius. I have always subscribed to the
you can fool some of People ,and so on. Bill Gates has fooled almost
all the people and done it for one heck of a long time. Its not that he
is crooked though he may be, it's that he is really smart. Ubuntu's
share may be 2% for ever if they do not market it better. I am not sure
that free is not a part of that marketing problem. In the minds of most
people you pay for what you get. So free may be worthless. I think
business doesn't like free software because it's a slap in the face to
them. Movie makers do not use anything that is cheap, much less free
how do you mark up a free item to make 30% a third of nothing is
nothing. A friend is mad as hell about creative commons cheapening
photography. In no way, will he use a free program. He tells me with
pride, I pay for what I use. He says even Mandrake is based on free
even if you have to pay a little something for it. Doug
Avi
> He said that one of the major strengths of Linux is actually one of
> its greatest weaknesses, and that is its immense diversity.
Hah. I've always seen that worded as:
"One of the major weaknesses of Linux is actually one of its greatest
strengths"
--
Avi
Samuel Thurston
That depends entirely on the business. Pretty much every software
company including microsoft has embraced free software in one way or
another. OSX uses the gnu baseutils, apache and mysql on its server
platform, webkit (the rendering engine from KDE's browser Konqueror)
was dramatically enhanced by apple for use in safari.
> Movie
> makers do not use anything that is cheap, much less free how do you mark up
> a free item to make 30% a third of nothing is nothing.
Last I checked almost every major CGI production house (pixar,
dreamworks, etc.) use Linux render farms.
> A friend is mad as
> hell about creative commons cheapening photography. In no way, will he use a
> free program.
No browser then? Or is he one of the dozen worldwide opera paid users.
> He tells me with pride, I pay for what I use. He says even
> Mandrake is based on free even if you have to pay a little something for it.
And that's a valid point. Those big production houses with Linux
render farms? You bet they all pay some 3rd party vendor to deal with
maintenance and repairs. There's definitely an economy based around
what you call "free." Red Hat and Novell (which was almost exclusively
in the linux business before they were sold) are both very profitable,
based around services and enhancements to free software.
Canonical is profitable too. You can certainly pay for Ubuntu if you
want, through Ubuntu One services, service & support contracts and so
on. Does that make it more desirable for desktop users? Maybe ones
like your friend but I think he is an outlier. I don't dispute that
there are still those that hold his mindset within the business world,
but I think a lot more have opened up to the TCO arguments behind
linux installations. Pay for licenses, pay for upgrades and pay for
maintenance, or just pay for maintenance? That's an easy business
decision.
Douglas Pollard
> Michael Haney wrote:
>
>> He said that one of the major strengths of Linux is actually one of
>> its greatest weaknesses, and that is its immense diversity.
> Hah. I've always seen that worded as:
>
> "One of the major weaknesses of Linux is actually one of its greatest
> strengths"
>
to do the job. You don't care what else it will do. If you run a shoe
store you want the best program there is to keep track of shoes and
order more when stock gets low. You don't care what it can do for the
steel maker. If the message is watered down by other wonderful things
it can do there is a very good chance the shoe seller won't even know
it's good for him.
He doesn't read about good software he reads about good shoe selling
software. You have to market a product to every individual user. The
auto maker put a beautiful women on the hood of the automobile in every
add. They marketed a beauitful women to every man above the age of
eight. The the car only had to be good enough to not completely turn the
buyer off. I think Linux has good software but is not marketing it. We
just put the product out there in a limited way and say try linux. This
reminds me of a kid with a lemon aid stand and a sign out front that
says, Lemonade. Doug
Nathan Bahn
On 5 April 2011 17:31, Michael Haney <thez...@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
> I see a
> lot about this in emails I get from ZDnet.
Beware ZDnet. The entire economics of the tech press revolves around
being cheap diseased whores - no separation between editorial and
advertising, blatantly trolling for ad-banner clicks with
pseudo-controversial articles.
There are individual tech press journalists who I'd trust to talk to
(waves to Liam), but in general the tech press are candy at best and
to be ignored.
Rant about how Wikipedia should have ignored the tech press from the
start and stuck strictly to the academic press:
http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2008/12/31/on-dealing-with-the-press/
The tech press is the canonical example of "just because someone pays
you attention, doesn't mean you should take them seriously."
The scary thing is that the tech press is economically viable. This
does not augur well for the rest of journalism.
- d.
Just curious -- what's your opinion of Ars Technica?
--N.B.
--
Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html & http://www.libreoffice.org/ (Nathan Bahn)
David Gerard
> D.G.--
> Just curious -- what's your opinion of Ars Technica?
> --N.B.
Haven't been burnt by them, I'm not aware of blatant anti-journalism
from them. Still nothing I'd bother reading for actual information,
though.
Nathan Bahn
On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 10:50, Avi Greenbury <li...@avi.co> wrote:It would take for us to write to hardware manufactures and ask for
> What would be nice it to get the Tux logos alongside the 'Certified for
> Windows' icons, but that requires someone to actually test the stuff.
>
Linux support. I try to write to one a week, but it usually turns out
to be closer to one per month.
Seriously, pick a piece of hardware at random and write to the
manufacturer asking if it supports Linux. If half the people on this
list did that once a month, in two years we would see Tux logos
everywhere.
--
Dotan Cohen
http://gibberish.co.il
http://what-is-what.com
--
D.C.--
Is there a web page somewhere with a list of hardware manufacturers and their street addresses?
Liam Proven
> So to take over the desktop, it does in fact need to succeed in some
> respect that is sufficient to push it forward.
>
> The year of the Linux desktop was 2007. I say this because that was
> the year when it was finally price competition for Windows - with
> reports of Microsoft charging $0 to $5 for XP on netbooks, just to
> keep Linux the hell off them. Before that, OEMs were at their mercy.
> This was bad enough for it to show up in Microsoft's financial
> statements of the time.
>
> So, price was actually enough at that time - we didn't win the
> desktop, but we gave it a damn good shake. What other thing could
> Linux do ridiculously better to beat Windows?
>
> Ubuntu is taking a plausible approach: the Mac has the slickest design
> and Microsoft has proven utterly unable to compete, so apply design
> skills to the problem. This has variable results, e.g. Unity doesn't
> work properly, and even if it did it's deliberately missing far too
> much actual functionality.
Concur. Both GNOME and KDE subtly ape the Windows way of doing things.
Even Mac OS X is more Windows-like than classic MacOS ever was.
Ubuntu seem to be consciously - if carefully - trying to make Ubuntu a
bit more Mac OS X-like. It's a bit of a mystery to me why they didn't
start with GNUstep, but hey. Maybe it's not GNOMEy enough.
> But this is why we have many distros.
Hmm. If anyone else takes up Unity, anyway.
Watched a few of the GNOME 3 videos today. It is rather more Mac-like
than I realised, too, and it also has a left-side Dock in it.
I wonder if at some point a merger between them might happen? I don't
like to see forks, but Canonical does seem to be pragmatic. If the
other lot win out and Unity falters, they might backtrack and
integrate. Maybe?
>> "I'm not talking about dumbing anything down, mind you. No, I simply
>> want to see all of us decide that we either are going to start taking
>> our platform seriously or opt to forgo the usual long-winded speech
>> about how superior it is in comparison to the alternatives."
>
> This is an example of what I meant by the tech press and ad-banner
> trolling for clicks. These are the words of a professional troll.
In the immortal words of Ford Prefect, "Don't knock it, it works."
I have tremendous respect for Andrew Orlowski's writing, for instance,
even though I seldom actually /agree/ with him about the big issues.
(He's a well-informed, rational, unbiased anthropogenic-climate-change
skeptic, for instance. Possibly the only one I've ever met, as opposed
to a hundred closed-minded, ignorant climate-change deniers.)
Andrew is /extremely/ good at digging out a controversial story and
presenting it in a style just inflammatory enough to get a million
page-views. What he personally feels about that story seems to be
immaterial.
That's a formidable talent, one to be reckoned with.
> People don't seem to realise just how good Wine is these days. The
> apps that don't Just Work tend to be (a) large (b) recent. But the
> thing keeping someone on Windows is more often that Just One App that
> they can't do without - and that app will usually work flawlessly in
> Wine. YMMV, of course, but it's *always* worth a try.
True. I've been surprised myself recently. It's what Lindows hoped
for, way back when.
What we need to do is, get some backers, buy out Xandros and relaunch
Lindows, with its classic tidied-up pared-down XP-like KDE desktop and
bundled WINE! :¬D
--
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lpr...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpr...@gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • MSN: lpr...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508
--
Liam Proven
Um. I don't mean to nit-pick just for the hell of it, I'm just curious...
> I have been sitting here reading these post and concidering where I have
> come from in using a desk top. I started out using a Texas instrument
> computer with no programs no hard drives only tape drives and almost no
> memory.
TI99/4a? I used them at school. Horrible things, great keyboard and
interesting CPU notwithstanding. The first 16-bit home computer, but a
minicomputer CPU on a chip with no onboard registers!
> Microsoft came out with 3.0 and 3.1 shortly after. I thought they were
> wonderful I had an IBM machine with a hard drive and Windows was great.
> After I sold my buisness fooling with my desk top became a hobby. After
> windows 97
Um. There wasn't one. There was /Office/ 97. You mention Win98 later,
so do you mean Win95?
> I began fooling with Debian. It was more than I wanted to
> struggle with. I did like the ( misguided ) idea that it was being done by a
> bunch of hobbyists.
Actually, pretty true of Debian, especially way back when.
> Along came Ubuntu
Launched in 2004, approaching a decade after Win95.
> and windows 98
Windows 98 was in, well, 1998, obviously! A full 7 years before the
first version of Ubuntu appeared, 4.10 "Warty Warthog" in October
2004.
> I kept fooling with
> both. I now use Ubuntu and do video with it. Works great I like Corel auto
> painter in xp. Does a few things I want to do. Tried it in Wine without any
> luck.
Odd - I believe Corel stuff is normally pretty good in WINE. They used
to develop for it and test against it.
> MY point is wine would not have brought me over from widows. This is
> what Ubuntu needs to do I don't think wine will help.I have a good friend
> who has been using Windows from the beginning and he thinks I am crazy for
> fooling with Linux and he thinks that anyone that uses apple is crazy. He
> will tell me that he is not wedd to windows but there is nothing else out
> there.
Ah, well, I have met many such people.
> This is the problem I think, It's one of marketing. I can't help but
> admire Bill Gates in that he has been a marketing genius. I have always
> subscribed to the you can fool some of People ,and so on. Bill Gates has
> fooled almost all the people and done it for one heck of a long time. Its
> not that he is crooked though he may be, it's that he is really smart.
He is very smart /and/ very crooked. The marketing genius has mostly
been other people's, though, that he's hired. Gates' brilliance has
always been in extremely hard-nosed business practice. He does
whatever he can get away with and that little bit more, and he doesn't
care who he hurts if it makes a buck.
Well, he used to. He's retired now and is buying himself a good name
as a philanthropist.
> Ubuntu's share may be 2% for ever if they do not market it better. I am not
> sure that free is not a part of that marketing problem. In the minds of most
> people you pay for what you get. So free may be worthless. I think business
> doesn't like free software because it's a slap in the face to them. Movie
> makers do not use anything that is cheap, much less free how do you mark up
> a free item to make 30% a third of nothing is nothing. A friend is mad as
> hell about creative commons cheapening photography. In no way, will he use a
> free program. He tells me with pride, I pay for what I use. He says even
> Mandrake is based on free even if you have to pay a little something for it.
I think you have a good point there. Sadly, the company exploiting
that market is Red Hat, not Canonical. But Canonical do need to find a
different angle, I agree.
--
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lpr...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpr...@gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • MSN: lpr...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508
--
Nathan Bahn
On 5 April 2011 23:17, Nathan Bahn <natha...@gmail.com> wrote:Haven't been burnt by them, I'm not aware of blatant anti-journalism
> D.G.--
> Just curious -- what's your opinion of Ars Technica?
> --N.B.
from them. Still nothing I'd bother reading for actual information,
though.
- d.
So which media sources do you recommend?
Liam Proven
Nope. But I can't see how Linux can ever out-MS MS.
My proposal would be this:
* a radical rethink of Ubuntu Server
... coupled with...
* a new edition and install mode of Ubuntu-the-client.
On the server:
Linux is a brilliant server. However, you need to be a Unix geek to
make it work. Ubuntu Server is as bad as any at this.
3 distros have attacked this:
SME Server (CentOS-based) is a good try. It's simple, stupidly easy to
get installed, does everything a small office needs out of the box.
Cons: no groupware; no modularity; no support for multiple servers.
ClearOS (ex ClarkConnect, also CentOS) adds modularity and flexibility
but it's a *lot* fiddlier and is kinda sorta semi-commercial.
Zentyal (Ubuntu-based) is somewhere in between, but it's also kinda
sorta a bit commercial and some of its functions just plain Don't
Work.
Oh, and all want to be a firewall, which is foolish.
What I think they should try is to either adopt Zentyal or do
something like it. An Ubuntu-desktop-style, one-click dead-easy
install server, aimed at small workgroups of /Windows/ servers.
That's the wedge to try to get Ubuntu into (small) businesses.
The other offering is a WUBI type install that goes on the local hard
disk of a Windows PC, leaving Windows in place, but is a live-CD-like
cache of an image kept on the server, effectively making all the PCs
into thin clients that self-update every boot. Maintenance-free, or as
much as possible, and easy to revert to vanilla Windows boxes at a
click. Develop a central management console for them - usable from a
browser under Windows, which is key - so that the admin can push apps
out to all the users with a couple of clicks. No repartitioning,
reformatting or anything else. User IDs ideally would be picked up
from the underlying install and/or authenticated against a Windows
server. Functionality to pull out email messages, contacts, diaries
and shared files from a Windows box or server would also be a very
good move.
Basically, a tool to make it dead easy to upgrade a roomful of
obsolescent Windows boxes to current, centrally-managed, Linux-based
thin clients, which run way quicker than the same hardware did under
Windows.
With the option to run any essential line-of-business Windows apps
under WINE. The desktop probably needs to be either vaguely
Windows-like or really /really/ simple and idiot-proof. Even more
simplified than the Netbook launcher.
It's all pretty doable, I reckon. Nothing in there is entirely new -
it's just using existing tools in a new way. Even Exchange clients and
things for the data migration are out there, I believe.
--
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lpr...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpr...@gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • MSN: lpr...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508
--
David Gerard
> So which media sources do you recommend?
I barely bother with the tech press. They are of no use to talk to or
read unless you are actually in the business of manufacturing computer
equipment.
Closest I get to reading press is following my Twitter, which includes
a few of the few good tech journalists, e.g. Glyn Moody.
Cybe R. Wizard
Outside of business (well, its /now/ business), my sister and a friend
of hers pay an office friend who is a Linux (Ubuntu, as it happens) nut
to set up, update and upgrade their systems. He also does a little
software troubleshooting (I've seen him post here). My sis switched
from Winduhs to (I think) RedHat, unbeknownst to me and half a
continent away, when she was hit by 'ILOVEYOU' around 2001. She
doesn't care about anything except that her system works reliably
without worries about malware and is more than willing to pay for
services rendered. Her Ubu guy has expanded into about ten or so
installations he part-times on.
Of course, he installed from his own burned media so none of those
installations show up in the stats. ...more's the pity.
There must be thousands of folks just like him. That's a lot of money
changing hands because of Linux that never shows anywhere except, in
the cases of honest workmen (we hope they all are), in taxes paid for
money made.
Cybe R. Wizard
--
Registered GNU/Linux user # 126326
Registered Ubuntu User # 2136
Christopher Chan
Oh yeah. Group policy support. There is nothing on this front except for
KDE 3 + kiosktool. Oh...NFSv4 acls but that might be just me.
Exchange replacement coming in the form of openchange but that is just
server side. Client side has yet to start...anybody know of a project
working with openchange on the client side of things?
Cybe R. Wizard
Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What we need to do is, get some backers, buy out Xandros and relaunch
> Lindows, with its classic tidied-up pared-down XP-like KDE desktop and
> bundled WINE! :¬D
Can we please do away with running as root by default? I dislike Puppy
for the same reason (although I run it in my woodshop just for the odd
computing task and completely non-connected to anything), but it does
at least run on low-spec hardware (which I have there).
BTW, wasn't that once a selling point for Ubuntu, that third-world
countries with second hand and/or low-spec hardware could use it and
love it? Wha' happen'?
Cybe R. Wizard
--
We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds.
Linus Torvalds
Michael Haney
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 6:21 PM, David Gerard <dge...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 5 April 2011 23:17, Nathan Bahn <natha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > D.G.--
>> > Just curious -- what's your opinion of Ars Technica?
>> > --N.B.
>>
>>
>> Haven't been burnt by them, I'm not aware of blatant anti-journalism
>> from them. Still nothing I'd bother reading for actual information,
>> though.
>>
>>
>> - d.
>
>
>
> D.G.--
> So which media sources do you recommend?
> --N.B.
>
I get emails from ZDnet, but the majority of my tech news comes from:
* Tech Dirt
* Linux Today
* Ars Technica
* Linux Magazine
* C/Net
* PC World
* PC Magazine
* DistroWatch
* LinuxInsider
* Reddit.com
* Engadget
* TWiT.tv (home of various podcasts hosted by Leo Laporte of TechTV fame)
--
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking
of morality by religion." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and
politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place
for it in the endeavor of science. " ~ Carl Sagan
Visit My Site: http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1
To Contact Me:
http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1/zorch-central---contacts
Free Your PC from the Bondage of Windows http://www.ubuntu.com
--
Liam Proven
> On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 23:31:36 +0100
> Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> What we need to do is, get some backers, buy out Xandros and relaunch
>> Lindows, with its classic tidied-up pared-down XP-like KDE desktop and
>> bundled WINE! :¬D
>
> Can we please do away with running as root by default? I dislike Puppy
> for the same reason (although I run it in my woodshop just for the odd
> computing task and completely non-connected to anything), but it does
> at least run on low-spec hardware (which I have there).
I recall that Puppy did it; I had forgotten that Lindows did. I never
thought much of Lindows/Linspire, but Xandros was pretty good. And
didn't run as root.
> BTW, wasn't that once a selling point for Ubuntu, that third-world
> countries with second hand and/or low-spec hardware could use it and
> love it? Wha' happen'?
Fair point. Mind you, compared to Windows Vista or 7, it still does.
And although I'm sad that UbuntiLite/U-Lite never prospered, Lubuntu
is doing a pretty good job. Xubuntu is not significantly lighter than
vanilla Ubuntu, but Lubuntu runs very well on the sluggish P4 with
256MB and elderly PII-750 with 320MB that I've tried it on. Dead easy
to install, simple, clean and attractive desktop, and works well.
--
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lpr...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpr...@gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • MSN: lpr...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508
--
Jan Claeys
> > Movie
> > makers do not use anything that is cheap, much less free how do you mark up
> > a free item to make 30% a third of nothing is nothing.
>
> Last I checked almost every major CGI production house (pixar,
> dreamworks, etc.) use Linux render farms.
Not only for the render farms, most of their desktops are linux too
(Fedora at Pixar, Ubuntu at the company that made Avatar, ...).
Don't forget that most of their in-house software started on Silicon
Graphics machines which ran on Irix/Unix (and later on Linux).
--
Jan Claeys
Michael Haney
> Samuel Thurston schreef op di 05-04-2011 om 14:40 [-0500]:
>> > Movie
>> > makers do not use anything that is cheap, much less free how do you mark up
>> > a free item to make 30% a third of nothing is nothing.
>>
>> Last I checked almost every major CGI production house (pixar,
>> dreamworks, etc.) use Linux render farms.
>
> Not only for the render farms, most of their desktops are linux too
> (Fedora at Pixar, Ubuntu at the company that made Avatar, ...).
>
> Don't forget that most of their in-house software started on Silicon
> Graphics machines which ran on Irix/Unix (and later on Linux).
>
The 3D software Pixar uses is called Renderman. It was developed by
ILM and was used for Jurassic Park, was used to animate Golem in LOTR,
and later King Kong in Peter Jackson's remake of the classic. Avatar
used SpeedTree quite heavily, the cinema version of course. Its a
render package for making realistic looking trees and plants. A lite
version is included in the Unreal Development Kit. The cost of the
license to use it commercially is rolled into the $99 fee for the UDK
if you sell a game developed using Epic's tools.
Epic really did indie developers a huge favor by reducing the licence
fee for the UDK to $99 for commercial use and no royalties owed until
you make over $50,000. The UDK is only available for Windows and I
think Mac, but you can develop games for Android using it. My friend
has a Motorola Xoom and a game called Dungeons Defenders which was
developed using the UDK.
A dedicated server for UT2k4 is still available for download for
Linux. Not sure about UT3 though, but I think they did make a
dedicated server for that game that runs on Linux.
It doesn't use the Linux kernel, but I recently saw a review of the
latest version of ReactOS. ReactOS is an open source Windows clone
with its own kernel and uses Wine. Its still in early stages of
development, has limited driver support, but it can ready run most
applications and games that work on Windows 2000 and XP.
--
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking
of morality by religion." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and
politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place
for it in the endeavor of science. " ~ Carl Sagan
Visit My Site: http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1
To Contact Me:
http://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/home-1/zorch-central---contacts
Free Your PC from the Bondage of Windows http://www.ubuntu.com
--