aRTee Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 Why are you on Mdk10.1 if 2006 is out and much better - one more year of development? BTW I don't see any of the things you mention - read my config page, for a regular system (neuchatel) I actually needed no extra configuration. At all. Flash, acroread, skype etc all working out of the box. I don't mind that you complain about things not working as you would like them to, but that's at least partially due to you, not entirely Linux as you make it sound... As for confusion, you come from a power user background on windows and are a novice on Linux; how do non-power users get along on windows? You really think they get along better with windows software variety (there's a lot more shareware/software out there for windows then there is for Linux)? I was helping my brother who never owned a pc before, and it's really not easy - and on top of all he's worried about spy/malware. IMHO your views are twisted, since you have lots of experience with Win, not enough with Lin. The relevancy of it all is that most switchers are like you... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qchem Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 I understand your frustration at the current state of desktop linux, but I'm afraid that with the openess that people desire (such as the with the car analogies above) comes the fractures in development. If developer B doesn't like how developer A makes his scanner package, he goes off and makes his own - perhaps from scratch or perhaps by forking the code of developer A. He adds the features that he finds useful and will almost always work on these before he adds features for other users of his package. You end up with different working environments and different ways of doing things, and with some time and effort it is possible to roll things together such that you have a working system that does what you want. I guess you have to ask yourself what can I gain from using Linux? Personally my answer to that is a useable UNIX-like system to use on workstations and desktop machines. Then you have to ask yourself what you'll lose from moving away from a different OS such as windows. In some cases the answer to this is not a lot, to others the shift is just too big. If you like to tinker Linux is a great OS, if you want something that just works it can leave a lot to be desired! Since you find Linux so ho hum, I really and truly suggest you retire to your "works out of the box Windows ???" and leave the rest of us get on with using our far superior, most secure, most stable, most reliable, most user friendly of all OSs. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thats a very bold claim that I don't think Linux matches, if you want superior OS design look at Plan9, security and stability in the form of OpenBSD, and for user-friendly perhaps OS X. Linux does make a decent average at them though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 My wife got to use OS X at work, don't tell me it's more userfriendly to intermediate users - I had to sit through a tirade of over half an hour about how beautiful OS X is and how utterly useless all of this if "they don't even have virtual desktops". Don't even start her on the one mouse button... Frankly, saying that OS X is soo user friendly (not that _you_ were) is just as overhyped as that Ubuntu is all that. It's good for some, not good for others. And I still think that if you want an out of the box experience that's great, apart from preinstalled systems, Linux takes the cake. With well selected hardware, you have a full system fully functional just after installation. What flash download? It's there. What pdf reader? It's there. All software, and all hardware configured. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilcal Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 If cars were designed like Linux is designed, some people would suggest that going into the showroom and looking at a bare chassis with an engine sitting on it would be a good thing. They say that in an ideal world you should choose the seats, dashboard, and body to be what YOU want them to be. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ya know when automobiles first came to market in the early 20th Century that's exactly the way they were sold. You chose a chassis with engine from one company and a "coach" from another. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chalex20 Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 No wonder you were having problems with your scanner. The front end for SANE is not, repeat not, kooka. It is XSANE SANE has several frontends, such as CLI scanimage, hell-knows-what-based xscanimage, GTK-based Xsane and KDE-based Kooka (surprise, surprise :)) Kooka is the cd burner program. Kooka is not and never has been. OTOH, K3B is. As far as I remember, Kooka has been designed as SANE frontend with kind of "integrated" OCR abilities. Sort of running GOCR from within, sparing users the need to issue a number of cryptic commands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chalex20 Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 It is my impression that everything is easier in Windows. For instance, I go to a web site and it says I need flash and click here to download it - done! I go to a web site and it says I need Adobe Acrobat, click here to download it - done! There is one very simple reason for such things being easier in Windows - the web sites you relate to, were deliberately and intendedly designed for users of IE on Windows. Their designers care neither for alternative browsers nor for alternative OSes, for variety of reasons. To go even further, there are sites that do their best to check that you indeed use IE on Windows, and deliberately block all the other browsers, in spite of these very browsers being fully and completely capable of supporting all the tricks of these very websites. In a better case, you may be presented with some crippled version of the site. In some cases, just changing the "user agent" string of the browser shows you the site as needed. Gmail site interaction with e.g. Konqueror is an excellent approval for this - you enter the site with default identification and see some crippled version telling you to use "supported browser". You change the identification to "Internet Explorer" and surprise! all works, no complaints. For other sites ( Israeli banking sites come to mind) even changing the "user agent" string wouldn't help - they use a lot of other tricks to exclude non-IE browsers. Now, look at some "magic circle" here. Users enter a site using alternative browsers, fail to browse it, change the user agent string to "IE" - and hoopla, all works. The site logs show that the vast majority of its users use IE ( according to "user agent" strings), so there is no need to adapt the site to support alternative browsers - it wouldn't be worth the money invested. "Catch 22" at its best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chalex20 Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 Ya know when automobiles first came to market in the early 20th Century that's exactly the way they were sold. You chose a chassis with engine from one company and a "coach" from another. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> And you had to be a good mechanic just to drive the car :) OTOH, there were neither "car licenses" nor "driving permits" nor "mandatory insurances" :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phunni Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 It takes less than a minute using google to discover linux applications for various tasks. This is no different from windows except where windows comes bundled with the software. Most of the packages you use in windows you are expected to "just know" in the same way - it's just that you do know because you picked it up somewhere and didn't even realise it... Most of the difficulties in Linux are, imho, due to lack of support (Note that I said most) . This includes hardware vendors who do not make drivers and even websites to refuse to support anything other that IE. This is nothing inherent in Linux - it's a natural result of Microsoft's monopoly. Some of the difficulties are, however, due to the fact that ease of use and stability/security are something of a trade off to an extent. Therefore Linux will probably always be harder to use - though not necessarily hard. This is a good thing - unless you're not bothered about security and stability... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 16, 2005 Report Share Posted November 16, 2005 (edited) I stand corrected about kooka. You are right it is a front end burner. I believe my other points still stand. Xsane is THE front end for Sane. Visit the Sane or Xsane website and you will see they are related. Kooka may use sane but it is not related to sane the same way xsane is. John. Edited November 16, 2005 by AussieJohn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phunni Posted November 16, 2005 Report Share Posted November 16, 2005 (edited) Actually, if you visit the sane website you will see a page listing a number of frontends - including both XSane and Kooka... If you visit the XSane site you will see that it uses the Sane library. The Kooka website says essentialy the same thing... None of this is really the point though - the issue is about whether it's easy to discover these apps. I believe that, with google, it is... Edited November 16, 2005 by phunni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted November 16, 2005 Report Share Posted November 16, 2005 When I started to use Linux, I had no clue of what to do. And in some cases I still don't. But that's why we are here on this forum, so we can find out, learn, and help others. I had just transitioned from Windows to Linux and I thought about giving it up, but I "persevered". To just give up is too easy, and to think, hell, I'll go back to what I know best. If you just work at it, and learn, and ask questions instead of moaning how bad it is and how great you think Windows is, then use Windows. If you gave Linux a chance and actually learnt something you'd be happy using it. I would use nothing else, but unfortunately I have to use Windows at work. But I created a dual boot, so that if I can find a way to do everything at work in Linux, then I shall do. Even if it means using WINE for some apps :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted November 16, 2005 Report Share Posted November 16, 2005 It is my impression that everything is easier in Windows. For instance, I go to a web site and it says I need flash and click here to download it - done! I go to a web site and it says I need Adobe Acrobat, click here to download it - done! There is one very simple reason for such things being easier in Windows - the web sites you relate to, were deliberately and intendedly designed for users of IE on Windows. Their designers care neither for alternative browsers nor for alternative OSes, for variety of reasons. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's not what I was being referred to. I've been taken to the linux downloads for flash and opera browser, but then what? Gotta be root. Why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guppetto Posted November 16, 2005 Report Share Posted November 16, 2005 Expectations, expectations, expectations. He's right, Linux doesn't just work out the box for Java, Flash, .mov files, dvd movies, and couple of other nice to have computing features. And it's true that they don't always work on windows and OSX either. And it's true that it's sad that Linux can't do everything for everyone out of the box. But that's the curse of expectations. When people have used something else (alternative OS) for the better part of their computing life, they tend to base every alternative to that OS, on how well it can perform the same functions. However, the reality is that windows, Linux, and Mac OS are supposed to work differently. They were all designed to accomplish simular task in different ways. Because of this fact, Linux switchers fall into two categores; those that understand this fact, and those that want an os like their old one. If you're searching for an OS that works like Windows, you won't find it out of any non windows box. With a little work you can condition yourself to use the Linux or Mac OS in a manor simular to what your accustomed to with windows. Good luck with your training. The alternative is to expect to have to learn something new. If you immediately want to achieve the same level of productivity, your expectations are to high. If you wan't to see linux work like windows out of the box, save yourself a lot of time and give up that hope now. Linux appraches computing task from a different perspective. If you're willing to discover if this alternate aproach allows you to be more, or as productive as alternative OS's, then welcome aboard. However, there will not be an escape for the learning curve. Some distributions walk you through the learning process more than others, but regardless of which distro you test drive, you will have to learn how to drive the car first. You can't run before you walk. There is plenty of help to solve the problem though, and that is Linux's greastest strenght. To use Linux, you have to accept that your going to have to place yourself before the mercy of the community. The day you accept that fact is the day you will discover why people love an OS that cant legally play mp3's, dvd's, use java, flash, or any apple proprietary codec out of the box. Those stumbling blocks seem big today, but expand your mind a bit, and a year from now, you'll smile along with all the others in the community that remember when they to were newbs! Welcome aboard; we won't leave you or forsake you, and that's something you can't say about any other OS! :D When in doubt, just say Help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted November 16, 2005 Report Share Posted November 16, 2005 Gotta be root. Why? Because this restriction, while it might seem an annoyance at first, ensures a very sensible security policy. If you're running a browser on the internet, you're running as a user of the machine, not an administrator. If you want to install software, or change things in the machine's settings, you have to be an administrator (or know the password to become one). You only take on the role of administrator when you want to do administrative things, and when you're browsing you're a user. Ok, so you have to type a password and become root to install stuff, that's a minor inconvenience, but it means that you can't knacker your whole system accidentally, and if some internet nasty gets hold of your browser, it only has privileges to do what a user can do, ie it can't hook into the OS and install some nasty backdoor or whatever. Any vulnerabilities are mitigated by this security model, which of course is also possible with a Win system (given good practices) but less often observed. PS/ Lighten up, AussieJohn! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted November 17, 2005 Report Share Posted November 17, 2005 Gotta be root. Why? Because this restriction, while it might seem an annoyance at first, ensures a very sensible security policy. If you're running a browser on the internet, you're running as a user of the machine, not an administrator. If you want to install software, or change things in the machine's settings, you have to be an administrator (or know the password to become one). You only take on the role of administrator when you want to do administrative things, and when you're browsing you're a user. Ok, so you have to type a password and become root to install stuff, that's a minor inconvenience, but it means that you can't knacker your whole system accidentally, and if some internet nasty gets hold of your browser, it only has privileges to do what a user can do, ie it can't hook into the OS and install some nasty backdoor or whatever. Any vulnerabilities are mitigated by this security model, which of course is also possible with a Win system (given good practices) but less often observed. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sorry, didn't mean to go over your head. Users can't go out of the $HOME DIR...so again...Gotta be root. Why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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