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My Thoughts About Converting People


Steve Scrimpshire
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"Is this telewest in the UK?"

 

It is. I didn't believe him. I fail to see why it would be a problem. I succesfullly use my cable connection with telewest and linux, I just am at the point where broadband starts making sense. I don't game on line its purely business. More serious is beng told it is not compatable with windows 98 standard installation but needs to be second edition.

 

If they are telling would be linux users that you can't use broadband with linux at best it is ignorance on the part of the call centre staff at worst they have been taking lessons from microsoft in customer bullshit.

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NO Linux support.....

I think the point the ISP's have is they dont want people calling support.

In away you end up with 'good' ISP's who provide FREE support shunning linix and bad ISP's (those who rely on the support calls to premium numbers making a profit)

 

Most BIG ISP's basically want to sent you a CD with a setup.exe and let you connect through that. A few support MAC's in this way too.

 

The USB modems are the cheapest so theyre often given away with a subscription....

This is a shame becuase using USB for networking is not really ideal. You can use a wrench to knock in a nail and it kinda works but a hammer is a more efficient, reliable and easier tool.

 

However: This is a shame because setting it up via an ethernet router/modem is MUCH simpler....

If you can get your network working you can connect :D

and networking is a area where linux has always had drivers....

 

Basically the ISP just want to sell a formula to the masses and the masses are WinBlows....

Try gouing to WalMart and ask if they will sell you a GI joe but can you change the uniform .... this is the way they think, they wanna sell 'shrinkwrapped' products becuase this is where they make their money.

 

At the same time its hypocracy... If your ISP uses Windows then get another ISP.... Anyone trying to run a ISP on Winblows is going to be unreliable. Even MSN can't do it!!

 

So many ISPs run linux or BSD but fail to support it....

They are hardly unaware of linux,,, theyre using it.

 

The problem is were ALL INDIVIDUALS..now everyone repeat that.

WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS :D

So when ISPx says it won't support linux we just giggle and think, hey I been using it for years without em noticing.

If we all stood together and formed the Linux ISP customers Union we could all turn round together and say... hey were x% of your customers and were using linux...

 

Either support us OR were going to ISPy

 

course ISPy needs to exist and support linux and be competitive.

 

When you think about it ISP's are a rip off.

Its a shrink wrapped box as I keep saying....

 

What do I get....

Oooh 25MB of home pages : Unused completely since I host my own

5 email addresses : I host my own web server not used

ftp access : to what I host my own server!!

 

 

Oh and I get my account info etc. to control/use

Except whenever I go to the link in my email they say I can't access it unless I connect from wanadoo. I AM connecting form Wanadoo, Im just not using there front end or WinCr$P

 

~Oh and a connection to the backbone....

THAT IS ALL I NEED/WANT

 

For this I have to PAY for a phone line I don't need use

I have to pay for services I don't want but I can't get by own access to the internet without buying a company ....

 

All I want/need with linux is the switching ....

 

Anon looked into this a while back, and its not easy....

We need a barebones ISP, no email no webpages etc. (we can do that ourselves) JUST internet access.

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Yes Wanadoo sucks.

In france you may try this one

http://adsl.free.fr/hd/description.html

They support Linux .. almost as badly as M$ Win :D

But it's cheap, if you are in the right place you have the TV B) and when it works it works (I pay for 512K, they gave me 1024K but it fact it runs at 1800+ K B) )

.. and it's where ARTEE's site is hosted so it can't be all bad ;)

:oops: going OT there ...

 

roland

Edited by roland
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Thanks Roland will check it out!!!!

 

It still sucks though....

My present connection costs me 30 Euros a month.

 

My phone costs me an additional 30 EUROS for something I don't even WANT.

 

Then if I connect a phone I need to pay extra to opt out of being in the directory to prevent getting telesales people call.

 

(I hate telephones, even friends calling annoy me becuase I never sit at home doing nothing... If Im home its because Im either sleeping or working on my computers....I don't sit in bored, if Im bored I go OUT...)

 

All I want is a connection damn it!!! No phone number/line/whatever, no web pages, no mail account ....

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I had/have wanadoo and I was very pleased with them, when we finally got out interesting connection and evrything was sorted out... It wasa not so easy start, but the I couldn't really complain.

 

They answered all my helpdesk-emails I think. And this was done quite quicly mostly. Phonecalls to helpdesk were also quite good. Ok, I'm talking about Wanadoo Belgium here btw. Now, Wanadoo Belgium has been taken over by Tiscali Beglium and I'm not really pleased about it .... our contract with tiscali remains the same as with wanadoo and we'll get some extra service ..like we can doanload from imap instead of pop3, but all this doesn't really matters. The most important stuff stays the same. download limit of 15 gig, download and upload-speed. I'll see what it's gonna give. Their own contracts only has a downloadlimit of 10 gig, ...

 

I've send 2 messages to their helpdesk in the last 1-2 months because of teh transition and if thej bancaccountnumbers will change automatically, .... I've got no answer whatever.

 

When I tried to visit their homepage : tiscali.be it was slow and some pages wouldn't even load .... like the help-page was very difficult to reach. I eventually used teh paper we could from them by mail when I remembered :).

 

Also my email-address was gonna change and since the transition ialready started from November last year I believe and it will end in february I think, I wanted to change to my new emailadress and wanted to see fi I ccould create another one. I have the impression I couldn't login ... it wasn't setup yet I suppose. Ok, we have access to our old emailaddress till end february or so, but anywayI wanted to change... I have't tried connecting to the imap-server, but I'll want to test it out. I hope my connectionspeed will still be ok. Maybe they still will use the old servers or so ... I suppose so. anyway as long as thinsg stay teh same or improve I won't complain.

 

Like you can see, I'm not really pleased with the transition, I hope it will go better once teh transition is over.

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Rule of LIFE...

Michel,

my rule fo life for things like this are never trust a nationalised company in their own country.

 

OrangeUK is great, Orange france sucks.

Wanadoo France sucks - Wanadoo.br was great!!!

 

Air France form Paris sucks - Air France from London is great....

reverse that for BA.

 

Often these companies try even harder when they try a foreign market place.

The Spanish are offering to buy the govt share of French autoroutes but I bet they suck in Spain.... but would do a great job in France :D

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Convert an average user? Why bother?

 

-Games? Never. Sorry but it just ain't happening for Lin.....and shouldn't. Stick to networking/office/server...it's lin's only hope.

 

-DVD's? Suck but will improve as much as possible, limited by XFree86.

 

-Sound? Sucks. Alsways has. Will it change in the next 2 years? I hope, but it hasn't in the last 2.

 

-XFree86? Bites. You know the story.

 

-Office? Come a long way in a short time and that's great but being in the US does me absolutely no good until I can't send a resume in .doc format without the format going wacko on me. Do not tell me pdf or something else. If the job ad says word/doc....that is what it must be or it will not even be opened.

 

I have much more but you get the idea. Why do I use linux then? I wonder sometimes myself. Guess because I'm a tweaker at heart.....always have been......win was tweaked out and boring.....so linux came along. Do I believe linux can win the desktop? No, I do not. The Rasterman knows what's up. Read what the legend says about it.

 

Besides, why would I want to convert my win-friends just to have to help them contantly? Actually, they'd all be back in Win inside a week.

 

It takes a certain kind of person to be a linux user. I don't see that changing soon.

 

k.....fire away! B)

Edited by bvc
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OK open fire here I come....

-Games? Never. Sorry but it just ain't happening for Lin.....and shouldn't. Stick to networking/office/server...it's lin's only hope.

 

 

UGGGH Your right, buy a console....

 

 

-DVD's? Suck but will improve as much as possible, limited by XFree86.

 

Well, unless you use mediaplayer on the console :D

Actually its the reverse, DVD's on hardware suck...all those region restrictions and being forced to rewatch the copyright/credits every time..... NO Fastforwards...

 

-Sound? Sucks. Alsways has. Will it change in the next 2 years? I hope, but it

hasn't in the last 2.

 

 

Im with ya bvc....

 

 

-XFree86? Bites. You know the story.

Yes and NO!!!!

Remember what XFREE does.... the protcol is heavy becuase it transmits a lot of stuff. Recently a lot is circumvented....

 

KDE use DCOP for the remote desktop, circumventing the X dependance.

Other apps can repacket/compress X over a WAN very well.

Whats really needed is an alternative not replacement .... like Qt on a palm or whatever....

I searched and asked here a while ago for a FULL FEATUERED BROWSER that runs without X.

Why, i have several internet only machines i just want to run a browser.

I don't want a WM or even a DM or even X... just a browser.

 

-Office? Come a long way in a short time and that's great but being in the US does me absolutely no good until I can't send a resume in .doc format without the format going wacko on me. Do not tell me pdf or something else. If the job ad says word/doc....that is what it must be or it will not even be opened.

 

Take care of the businesses first then the rest will come.

Incidently if web-agencies ask for a CV in a particualr word format its probably because they load it into a search engine.

 

However, applying for a job as a linux admin shouldn't entaila .doc format :D although it often does becuase of personel depts....

 

-Besides, why would I want to convert my win-friends just to have to help them contantly? Actually, they'd all be back in Win inside a week.

 

Tel em to get a console for Games....

Actually his ws the whole Lindows arguament.

If you dumb down linux enough then even these guys'll be able to use it BUT it stops being interesting....it doesn't even have that windows charm we hackers like having to keep refixing it!!!!

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Currently I started playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, RPG heaven!

 

Only drawback is, it is heavy, eats resources and is quite buggy, so saving every 2 darn minutes is not a bad idea.

 

The company said they aimed to make the release 'bug free', but I was thinking: perhaps they could not get deep enough access to the internals of WindozeOS to make it 'really' bug free.

 

Morrowind, IMHO, is a masterpiece and I would install Linux only to be able to play it, if it was possible to play it only on Linux.

 

But, more importantly, bugs found would be detected and repaired blazingly fast under GPL or similar license. Which would actually mean after a while, you would have a virtually bug-free masterpiece! Without additional expense, which would help boost sales (the crashes of the game are a major turndown for a lot of people that (want to) buy the game).

 

Even better, put it on a live CD, with a USB key to put your savegames on (or on HD). Hey, presto! Portable Morrowind.

 

Bethesda soft made it even more interesting by releasing a development kit which allows you to create whole new worlds!

 

Now, if this were open-sourced, e.g. after inital sales drop to the bottom, they could squeeze a nice extra penny from it. Rembember, geeks are an ideal RPG audience. Then, they could let the community fix the bugs and release/sell 'expension packs' or new games based on the existing engine, with their added value being:

 

- storyline

- (3D) art

- music

- ...

 

Then they could build on the existing engine and release a couple more extensions - half the work, equal profit.

 

You don't actually have to have a lot of imagination to see that Linux DOES have opportunities. I'm sure if they did the above it would be a killer hit. But not for all games.

 

Morrowind has also been released on the X-box, of course it is buggy also and people complain. It gives you so much value for its price that I think this is actually a smart move by whoever in M$ decided to do it.

 

Maybe, as in several fields, the strength in Linux gaming does not lie in the field itself, but in the way it is dealt with.

 

 

Darkelve

Edited by Darkelve
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Yesterday I found i can't get broadband unless I upgrade to second edition windows 98 or XP whatever. The isp provider -telewest broadband tell me that they are not compatable with Linux. This latter bit I find hard to credit but have not yet investigated further.

 

The fact that they want win98SE indicates that they are likely using a USB broadband modem. Standard win98 USB support sucks. Ask them if they have an ethernet modem available. If they do, you should have no problem getting that going in linux.

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well put Gowator, except for the office bit. That is usually why they want a .doc and is exactly why the format can't get altered. You want it read you know. Yeah, like the job market is overflowing with postitions for a linux anything.

 

Getting a gaming console would be the way to go for most. For me?....too expensive...heh, I don't even have a tv, well a 13" that barely works. Games are played on the pc. Just got 3 last night actually, 2 for the kids, 1 for me, and another nextweek....Colin Mcrae Rally3. I bought Tuxracer boxed. Specifically let them know it was to support them because of linux.

 

I don't dumb down linux.....I just call it like I see it....I didn't make it....and I won't break it.

Edited by bvc
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