gmac

I still think the office suites are an important feature for linux, people buy computers for what they do not how they do it. If they lose their dominance there MS would be in trouble/ The biggest bugbear, at least in the UK is that the only way you can buy a computer from a main retailer is with windows installed. its chicken and egg, oem's won't install linux bexause there is no demand there is no demand because you have no choice in the matter. Looks like, from what he was saying as a former insider that the senior management have their heads in the past and a culture where people are nervous wbout being critical. twenty years from now you will be saying to your granchildren I remember microsoft when it owned the world.

To remain in existence linux in some form or another has to be economically viable. If you can't beat microsoft on the desktop and break a monopoly by being a viable alternative then the long term future is bleak. People who don't try linux aren't stupid they just have other priorities. Most people just use a computer and how it woks doesn't really matter. How many people do you know can drive a car but wouldn't know where the jack is? This is bad I agree with bvc. Cars are a good analogy, microsoft is like Ford, everywhere but you don't appreciate the alternative if you have to get used to having the pedals in different positions and different gear sequences and clutch every time you get in a new one, you just won't bother will you? cos the one you have works and you know where you can get it fixed

Startx it is. Now all I have to do is work out how to change the screen sttings so I can read it. The installation seemed a lot esier than with mandrake in that all the hardware was picked up o.k., with mandrake i had problems with the monitor settings. I need the manuals-I gather they are better than mandrakes. as a non computer type i prefer to sut and work my way througha decent manual so I can get working. Thanks for the help.

I have just installed suse on an old computer witha cd from a magazine hence no manual or anything. Installed much more easily than mandrake except I didn't specify the graphical desktop. Before I reinstall to see where I went wrong How do you get the GUI from the black screen?

Smaller nations have done very well out of the EEC (I live in one except our fisheries were sold as a bribe to get in but that's hardly relevant) There are a lot of vested interests that don't want europe to succeed and would take great delight in being able to play one state off against another. This is just one such issue. What they can't do head on they are trying to do by the back door. The best defence against companies like microsoft is a strong EU that can tell them to get stuffed.

Can't say I agree. Its not laziness so much as complete indifference. People are now used to buying a computer with windows all set up. Most don't even know what an operating system is. The computer is used blindly as a tool without the need to learn what it is. It's only if you need one to work with yourself or get interested that what makes it work becomes relevant-a lot of people are like that. The computer breaks get someone to fix it, get someone to maintain it. The same kind of mentality that has them calling out raodside assistance when they have a flat tyre. Understandable if you are physically incapable of removing the nuts or are disabled, pathetic if tyou don't even to know where the spare is. Thanks to microsoft we have PC's everywhere but people don't know how to use them properly or what goes on inside them because they buy one, plug it in and it works Actually I'm fairly indifferent myself but this is something I need to know.

How about voting in the next european election Very true, the constitution would go a long way to curbing the power of the faceless bureaucrats. Cheer up though some recent proposals are likely to wreck our financial services industry, maybe the realisation that not being involved is more detrimental might wake them up a bit and get some of our institutions thinking when they realise the choice is have an influence or have none at all and still have to put up with decisions made in europe. don't know if you've noticed but bureaucrats aren't elected they are appointed by the people you are supposed to elect to act on your behalf. We trade mainly with europe, if we are not in the eec you can kiss goodbye to all the foreign investment.

I like them too three citroen and eight renault. That's why I feel I can criticise them with some authority. My last car a diesel clio I had to replace the whole front suspension. You know why? because when they put in a heavier engine they didn't put in higher spec shock absorbers. The result hundreds of fed up drivers and lost customers like me. I know two other owners that had the same problem, most people buying diesels do a high mileage. Same with Citroen I had a BX Great engine great suspension system but every 30,000 miles new suspension links and brake discs. Every 60,000 a new clutch Since I was doing more than that in a year it made it very expensive to run and removed any inclination I might have to buy another. I sold it with 140,000 on the clock so you con't say it didn't have a good chance. They also had an endemic problem with warping cylinder heads that they never sorted. Now I wouldn't touch a peugeot citroen because I would always be waiting for bits to fail.

I can't help thinking mandrake being french is like french cars. Great product, innovative, brilliant engineering but the wheels fall off and other uninteresting but important bits as well that they don't think matter.

Thanks gowater I was half fun wholly serious. In my own business that type of thing is beccoming increasingly relevant. I will shortly have to look at backing up crucial data in a seperate location from my main computer. It is actually a legal requirement that I do so. As it happens I know a computer consultant that can set up a system for me. While it would be nice to do it myself I do have other priorities-like making a living. But that kind of thing is very relevant. things like 3g phones and mobile internet are also going to be essential rather than toys to play with. I will also be needing remote access to my computer when that technology becomes cheap enough. I'm no techno freak these are tools I need and can see a purpose in having. I was at a business network meeting and I know for a fact that at least two other people at the table are looking at the same kind of thing out of necessity. That guy was losing business because nobody knew what he was talking about. Admittedly I had a vague notion. "It is correct to understand that the end result, what the cuastomer sees, is what they will pay for." Who can see a thin client, I notice IBM are advertising in the same vein, who are they aiming at?

"I think you miss a fundamental point there. Unless the business you are talking about is computing then what matters is what the computer does for them not how it does it." "So, the os is not where the money is. That is the Microduffy way. It is made on the way to offering a complete product:service, deployment, customization." Just for once ix you and I are in complete agreement. I keep hearing computer consultants talking about what they do rather than what they can do for the people listening. Thin client server what's that? Is fat a computer issue or does it mean you only deal with thin clients.

"Having all source code and packages readily available gives a lot of room for creativity. I think it is that creativity business people find hard to handle, since in their business, everything is done 'by the book' and the book is always right." I think you miss a fundamental point there. Unless the business you are talking about is computing then what matters is what the computer does for them not how it does it. Most will stick with windows because it is familiar and its cheaper to train staff becauise so many companies offer courses on excel etc. things like star office are every bit as good but unfamiliar enough to be offputting. If you are putting in a system for a company whether it is windows or linux won't matter so long as the end user can use it without too much retraining. Actually its a mistake to think companies actually train their staff properly, especially small business. Don't talk about linux talk about wehat they want to do. I'm self employed, I started mucking about with linux for reasons I won't bore you with. Right now I am at hiatis with experimenting, firstly because I'm skint otherwise I think I would buy the components and have a go at building my own box. But also because it is a distraction form my main business so realistically I am quite likely to pick up a phone and ask one of my clients to do it for me. Tell him what I want what I need to be able to do and let him get on with it.(he's al;so the one that handed me a mandrake cd rom) This is a tool I am using not really something I spend hours playing with-except I enjoy this forum so skive off to look at it. I don't know how mandrake make money but marketed properly they could probably do quite well.

How do you access the books? I couldn't get beyond the linux biook page, there seem to be no active links

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1201559,00.html It accuses the EC of making new law and warns that the decision could harm the European and world economies. "In the absence of the application of any novel concept of competition law - and in view of the fact that the software industry is not exempt from the application of competition law - Microsoft should have been aware of the fact that it was infringing the competition rules of both the treaty [of Rome] and and the EEA [European economic area] agreement." The commission said Microsoft had not submitted "adequate evidence" that tying the Media Player to Windows could be justified by pro-competition benefits. Those benefits could be achieved without any such tying, according to the commission's judgment. "As regards 'other benefits' identified by Microsoft, they primarily relate to Microsoft's own profitability." I reckon microsoft will try and play the anti american card on this. Never mind the real issue let's talk about something else. Just for the record the EC competition commission clobbers european companies with equal enthusiasm. Volkswagon being the most recent. Then again conti is italian so maybe he's sticking it to the germans

I suggest you take open office as well, if you can't interest them in the operating system a free office suite might catch their interest-depending on who you're giving it to of course. Any business would find it of interest especially of MS office is as prohibitively exoensive there as it is in the UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1194092,00.html Go for the office suites. "I just thought perhaps English was a foreign language to you. And it's not like I never make mistakes" Jings, crivens help me boab! Nae laddie it's no a foreign language ye ken I jist talk wi a funny accent.

"Also, I think you mean 'loss leader'?" I did. I can spell, I can type its the two together that cause me problems.

Good thing definitely. It's also a good business tactic, I think. you notice they also offer website and other IT consultancy services. One of the offputting things about linux is having to download everything and do it your self. The same with open office. That may sound daft to you but if you are relatively new to using a computer extensively it is rather daunting, especially if you are a small business user and don't want to hurt your precious computer. Also I find most "computer comsultants" want to sign you up to maintenance contracts, which however necessary at the beginning feels like money being laid out for an uncertain benefit. You dfon't appreciate the necessuty until ine day your computer goes blamk just when you reall need it.If on the other hand someone hands you a free office suite to try that is as good as if not better than microsoft and also offers all those kinds of services, when your business is at the point where you need those kinds of things where will you go? My route to linux was via the office suite, One of my clients suggested I try linux, I did some research bought the mandrake box set-because I didn't want to download being relatively new to this, got it working on an old computer that had utterly failed with windows, read about open office/star office bought star office and now use it exclusively. I would actually still be wary of downloading extensively but that's me. I will download things like mozilla and guess what I am using now instead of IE explorer. Now if someone had handed me an office suite free like open office to try would I be interested in doing further business? I am now at the point where I will need a seperate server and am looking in to web sites, but frankly thanks to early experience of the "microsoft consultant" I would less likely to proceed be untrusting of most of them as rip of merchants. Especially the ones that tell you linux is just another type of software. For someone purporting to be a computer consultant not to be aware of linux suggests to me they are not really interested in what they do, worse, if they do then assuming a potential customer asking about linux doesn't really know and can be easily dissuaded is arrogance of the worse kind. It's an old adage in sales if someone asks about a prodict it is a buying signal, dismissig the question out of hand is a sure sales loser, answer the question then sell them yours. You average customer is ill informed not stupid. So if anyone reading this is trying to get in the small business market think of it as business aikido. Work out what the client wants to do, start moving him in the direction you want him to go and when he is moving throw him the way you want. But you will do it by offering good service, not product. Nobody buys a good operating system, they buy what it does. The free office suite offer is a brilliant lose leader.

http://trends.newsforge.com/trends/04/04/1...4.shtml?tid=137

You are being rather uncharitable. It takes to get to know the ins and outs of linux or windows-it would be interesting to see how they got on installing windows on a fresh computer its every bit as awkward if things go wrong and you don't know what has happened-if it doesn't detect the hardware how do you sort it? The whole point is that most people have got comfortable with windows and have learned to cope with the eccentricities "One thing that particularly disconcerted him was how the Start Menu was organized. Instead of listing programs by their name (such as Outlook, PowerPoint or Word) applications were listed by function. When he wanted to find a video game, for example, he had to select Play Games. It's a system that he admits, seems like it would be more intuitive. But it goes against years of computer experience." What he is not pointing out is if you don't know the name of the programme you want in windows you are stuffed, linux is more logical, windows more familiar. I remember the first time I used word I couldn't work out how to format the page because the last place I expected to find the necessary function was under file, its a stupidity you eventually learn is "NORMAL" At least the guy sounded intriqued, maybe the next time he has to buy the newest version of MS office he will try an open source alternative instead

Have to looked to see if your scanner is supported by Vuescan? No it isn't supported at all. It's a lexmark all in one that I assumed would be supported in Linux, big mistake. It's not a major problem as I will have to buy a multipage scanner soon anyway. I have come across scanning software that saves to PDF rather than to a proprietory database like most of them so I can make up my own filing system rather than buying it and locking in to an upgrade cycle. I have not come across similar in linux but I am sure there must be as paperless offices are not just fanciful science fiction any more but technology that will allow me to set out on my own (hooray) and if Suse and others of that ilk are serious about the business market they need to be involved. The future is not big business its all the small businesses around now and just starting that will be there for the future. I can dual boot and will have to keep windows anyway for some things but what I don't spend on things like microsoft office I can spend on hardware which is what I intend to do. I like linux cos I can play around with the diffrent systems before making a long term commitment I just wish manufactuirers would stop supplying windows only computers.

Have you any comments on how suse works with scanners? I am about to try suse on a second machine out of curiosity. At the moment it seems more attractive than mandrake as my choice of linux didtribution has to be one that is likely to survive and be commercially viable, since Novell have taken over suse it seems a good long term prospect plus I know computer consultants I can use to set up and look after a suse system but I also like to know what's going on under the bonnet as it were (In case you are american bonnet=hood as on a car). I work with a computer as opposed to work WITH computers and realistically spending too much time learning about linux can seriously get in the way of what for a living-mainly cos its more fun. Businesswise I am at the point where I will need a home server and things like mobile internet access and remote server access are about to become essential and certainly over the next two years I can see me using these things constantly so it is not an idle question. Most of the microsoft orientated consultants want to just come in and set things up and don't seem too keen on me knowing what I am doing. I may be ignorant but I am not stupid and it is a patronising attitude that pisses me off. What got me interested in linux is constantly having windows crash and not knowing what is going on. I don't know what is going on with Mandrake either but at least I can take steps to find out. I can get around most of the office software problems I have come across but the scanning side seems to be a major stumbling block

Try the SANE project - Scanner Access Now Easy. Thanks. I will have to do a lot more digging. How about SUSE? How does it compare with mandrake in terms of scanner compatability? This is terrible. It would be so easy just to stick with windows but so annoying as well. but I've got the hjang of staroffice now so I can make up my own database

"For your burner, get to know k3b." I had a problem in that i could not get mandrake to find the cd writer, it could see the cd rom but not open it. I'm not too bothered as I will have to upgrade soon anyway. I'm also using scanners a lot. Do you know of any manufacturer of scanners that supports Linux?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/...1170072,00.html