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| Authored by: PJ on Friday, September 21 2007 @ 05:06 PM EDT |
I don't use Ubuntu either at the moment.
I use Mandriva and Fedora. But
I'm writing for new folks about the desktop. And
they are claiming Linux has no hope there. But
it is already successfully on the desktop. The
others are not in the same league as far as
public awareness. I wish to foster their
awareness, and on other occasions I will write
about the other distros, as I have on many
occasions.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 21 2007 @ 05:06 PM EDT |
Personally, I won't use Ubuntu as its usability OOTB with that Black
and Orange
color scheme is IMHO rather poor especially for those of us who are
visually
impaired (5/20 vision and getting worse). Yes I know you can change it
but that
is not the point. If a piece of software is going to be easy to use
then the
ability to read the text surely is a major issue.
What
solutions have you come up with for your problems? I just spend most of my time
at the console--which doesn't work for me on some distributions :(--because I
often have problems seeing the print on X. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 21 2007 @ 06:02 PM EDT |
Years ago, seems almost like in a galaxy far far away, when Linux was the
next big thing I tried a couple of the popular distros. I was disappointed,
there were bits all over the place, things half-baked. I was sure real
unix couldn't be like that. Then I tried Net- and Open-BSD. These seemed
better organised, more secure, but still for a n00b the help from the forums
was daunting, gruff, braces and beard, Sure, write your own man page
...
So now Linux has matured, and the customer has choice
in the
market. But what to choose?
LinuxCD.org lists only 320 versions;
Distrowatch claims
1000+ versions of
Linux & BSD. It's almost enough to drive one to a
Monopoly.
And yes this is part troll, because I am now using a rock solid BSD,
where the vendor pays people to update man pages when behaviour changes,
and
to write man pages for things that never had them before. This vendor
accepts
from and gives back to the Open Source community, and provides
updates and
security patches as timely as most in the industry. Unfortunately
some of my
projects are made more difficult because I would need to reverse
engineer
compiled binaries and thus break my EULA with Apple Computer
Inc....[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 21 2007 @ 08:00 PM EDT |
...is the problem with Linux and Ubuntu.
M$ built their monopoly around the rather simple philosophy of "users are
stupid, and must be protected from themselves". And it worked, millions of
completely clueless users acquired computers and blindly started computing away
while a handful of crackers quietly started a whole industry around using and
abusing the users.
Linux has been accused of being too geeky, and only good for tech savvy users,
but the bottom line is; its not the OS, its the computer! Computers ARE tech,
they ARE geeky, and if you don't know the first thing about the computer then it
doesn't matter what OS you use, its eventually going to do something you didn't
expect and you'll be hosed.
Ubuntu tries too hard to hide everything from the user, just like M$. Instead
of trying to compete with M$ in the "users are stupid" game, distro's
should take more of a Slackware approach, and say "This could take some
time, but it will be a lot easier if you do some homework first."
Go to linuxquestions.com and look at the multitude of threads that go around in
circles without even establishing what hardware or OS is involved. And when it
finally comes up, look at how many times its ubuntu or fedora.
99% of the Linux install problems could be avoided by the simple expedient of
finding out and making a list of components; soundcard, video card, nic, modem,
etc before starting the install. Then if a problem comes up, google "linux
+'device'" and you will likely get a solution.
Instead, you see:
Q: Help, I can't get my sound working!
A1: You should switch to {insert distro du jour}.
A2: You need to upgrade alsa and recompile your kernel.
(and finally)
A3: What soundcard are you using, and what distro?
Q2: Its a Dell, and my distro is 10.2 I think?
A4: You should switch to {insert distro du jour}.
A5: I don't think those work with Linux.
Q3: It worked fine with XP.
A6: Use KDE instead.
and so on... exactly the users M$ has cultivated all these years.
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| Authored by: Nick_UK on Saturday, September 22 2007 @ 07:18 AM EDT |
I will defend Ubuntu here.
I use Slackware 10 on my desktop - it is old version now, but I update
everything from source, so really it isn't Slackware anymore - it is more my own
GNU/Linux version.
I am being made redundant in January, so will lose my work owned laptop, and as
I can get a deal from Dell under the employee purchase program (3% off list) and
also can claim back 12% from work, I decided to get my own laptop for when I am
job hunting/holiday, whatever.
I bought a Dell Inspiron 6400 (UK) with dual core, 2GB ram, Intel wireless etc.
etc. - Ubuntu pre-installed. I only went this route as I will only use
GNU/Linux OS, and also I thought buying new with a pre-installed GNU/Linux the
support from the OEM is there.
So I have a Ubuntu pre-installed laptop.
First, it all works (another reason I bought a pre-installed GNU/Linux laptop) -
touchpad/scrolling, wireless, modem (if ever needed!) etc. etc.
Ubuntu is very nebulous, and you can see it is geared up for MS users to migrate
to - a lot is hidden, and to be honest a lot of things a user doesn't need to
know is not 'open' to be allowed to mess with. There is almost a GUI wizard to
set up most things if you need to [do it that way].
Having said that, it is still GNU/Linux and you can still fiddle under the hood
if need be (like I have - a few things were not right that a normal user
wouldn't notice, but I fixed it up).
Ubuntu is very good for the MS user -> GNU/Linux migration, and can only get
better.
And finally, if you are after a GNU/Linux laptop, I would recommend the Dell
Inspiron 6400 at a drop of a hat - it just *works*, and very nice it is too.
Nick
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| Authored by: LaurenceTux on Saturday, September 22 2007 @ 11:48 AM EDT |
what should scare Microsoft is
1 Mandriva 2008 will have a program designed to migrate settings and files from
Windows (its a Ubuntu project)
2 2008 will also have NTFS READ/WRITE on by default (the ntfs-3g dirver will be
default)
3 Oh and because of Compiz Fusion systems that couldn't run Vista Basic will run
with full 3D and transparency effects
4 btw this does mean that Mandriva will have a Full version out before MS has
SP1 out[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- Corel's old Linux - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 22 2007 @ 12:02 PM EDT
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