coverup Posted June 1, 2006 Report Share Posted June 1, 2006 Your impression is based on your profficiency in Linux and the lack of Windows knowledge. I know people who are quite profficient with Windows and Mac OS. By the way, Windows does have a console and message/events log, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted June 1, 2006 Report Share Posted June 1, 2006 a console that is not nearly as functional as a linux console, sure :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted June 1, 2006 Report Share Posted June 1, 2006 Just my 2 cents... People own computer to use it. They come to a shop and see a choice of Windows computers, and they buy one of them and use it until it breaks. Most people don't even know of alternatives. In the city I live, you won't find Macs or Macs software in a department store, let alone Linux. For most people, a browser = IE, a computer = WinXP Home, a dvd player = Windows Media Player, etc, because this software comes installed. You own a car, do you think of replaicing the engine or suspension the next moment you have left the caryard? Let's rename this thread "Why are people afraid of putting a Ferrari engine in their Ford?" Disclamer: I have nothing against Ford. Yes this is partly true but its not the whole story. Most windows users seem to spend there time updating anti-virus software etc. in a constant battle or getting infected and gradually it stops and they call a friend or pay someone. My Ford engine doesn't only take Ford gas. If the alarm/security system is known to be inadequate and targetted by every car-thief ... If it did I would be changing the engine for one I can buy whatever gas I want at the first moment and updating my alarm system. If my media player comes with conditions, phones home etc. then I wnt to change it. If my browser is insecure I want to change it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted June 1, 2006 Report Share Posted June 1, 2006 Most windows users seem to spend there time updating anti-virus software etc. in a constant battle or getting infected and gradually it stops and they call a friend or pay someone. to be fair, most virus scanners have auto updaters that work pretty well. it's not quite the 'constant battle' that you make it out to be, all the windows computers in this house - not setup by me, run and keep running. My Ford engine doesn't only take Ford gas. If the alarm/security system is known to be inadequate and targetted by every car-thief ... If it did I would be changing the engine for one I can buy whatever gas I want at the first moment and updating my alarm system. If my media player comes with conditions, phones home etc. then I wnt to change it. If my browser is insecure I want to change it. the thing is... users dont know the alternatives exist. and when they do find the alternative, it seems substandard. mandrake does not come with codecs out of the box as an example, and installing them, is simply not an intuitive process. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coverup Posted June 1, 2006 Report Share Posted June 1, 2006 the thing is... users dont know the alternatives exist. and when they do find the alternative, it seems substandard. mandrake does not come with codecs out of the box as an example, and installing them, is simply not an intuitive process. Exactly :excl: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted June 1, 2006 Report Share Posted June 1, 2006 the thing is... users dont know the alternatives exist. and when they do find the alternative, it seems substandard. mandrake does not come with codecs out of the box as an example, and installing them, is simply not an intuitive process. Exactly :excl: Neither do MS.... I just found out on a new install the Media Player codecs do not include DVD or avi etc. but don't worry because it contacts MS and downloads them automatically for you. Well ,after you agree to the EULA. to be fair, most virus scanners have auto updaters that work pretty well. it's not quite the 'constant battle' that you make it out to be, all the windows computers in this house - not setup by me, run and keep running. I hardly think you are the average Joe.... my experience fixing friends computers is they have an anti-virus and its out of date, they go on vacation and don't update for 2 weeks or stop paying the subscription etc. So my statement is in terms of an answer to: People own computer to use it. They come to a shop and see a choice of Windows computers, and they buy one of them and use it until it breaks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted June 1, 2006 Report Share Posted June 1, 2006 What people don't like in Linux is not Linux. In my experience, people's lack of knowledge about Linux is not even an issue: Linux is so versatile that you can adapt it to the user. An indeed, Mandriva can be used with no console at all (basic usage). The only real problem I see lies in DRIVERS, and hardware manufacturers are at fault, not Linux. Well, it also can happen that no application is available for a given task, but that is rare and that task is often very special. Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted June 1, 2006 Report Share Posted June 1, 2006 The only real problem I see lies in DRIVERS, and hardware manufacturers are at fault, not Linux. linux's driver support is a helluva lot better than it's made out to be. it's always in need of improving, as there is still quite a bit of hardware that could work better, but at least a majority of it works. mandriva's support is shocking because it's dated and poorly maintained. other distros have poor support in some areas because they don't include particular drivers for philosophical or legal reasons, eg ati or nvidia. the drivers are there for a majority of devices, its a matter of them being distributed and then setup properly -- and that's where the distros fall down. it's not just the hardware manufacturers, but the distros too. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted June 2, 2006 Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 To some degree, yes. However, why don't distributions include all those drivers already configured? Because most are development in progress, at an alpha or beta stage, with lots of special cases (depending on the actual device). And why is that so? Because most of these drivers are the hard work of free software developers, who often have to do reverse-engineering because (most) hardware manufacturers not only don't release drivers, but also do their best to keep crucial information to themselves. We all owe a lot to all those free-software-driver developers, without whom Linux wouldn't be where it is today. Indeed, thanks to their hard work, most device do work. Yet the world is not all white or black. Some companies do distribute (or participate in) free software drivers for their devices; some don't do that but help the free software developers with usefull documentation. And yes, sometimes, distributions could be improved (WiFi...). Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 2, 2006 Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 I agree with the driver thing, but it is related to general computing ignorance. Go to a sight that specializes in windows and read the comments concerning linux. After the initial laughing, focus on thier general concept of computing. Computers are suppose to do everything for you, including scramble your eggs for breakfast. This concept of "automatic" goes back to the days when Gates was with Apple and the hardware/software mix was very limited to specific devices. Afterall, if I know the devices, the drivers can be included and used when needed. It is a standard, although it limits those who can do business. Gates tries to do this with a plethora of hardware. And in order for the computer to work automatically, root access must also be automatic. Now, these windows techies confuse access permissions with usability every single time they open their mouths (or type on their keyboards) Funny thing is, Microsoft is dictating to the hardware vendors in such a way as to control them, which means Gates stilll invisions the old apple concept. Everybody thinks that a product should just work. I learned windows from the 3.x days when one had to read the instructions and edit some config files in order to make a modem work. Currently, the Nvidia installer now has an automatic function, but you must be root, and if you are running certain distros, Fedora for example, you should use the packages designed for that distro. But i do not think configuration should go away, and certainly not at the cost of security. Ease of use =insecure, period. Thanks to Microsoft marketing, the public (and many techs) are completely ignorant of this problem. They think they should be afraid of linux. They should actually be afraid of windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted June 3, 2006 Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 (edited) To some degree, yes.However, why don't distributions include all those drivers already configured? Because most are development in progress, at an alpha or beta stage, with lots of special cases (depending on the actual device). And why is that so? Because most of these drivers are the hard work of free software developers, who often have to do reverse-engineering because (most) hardware manufacturers not only don't release drivers, but also do their best to keep crucial information to themselves. being alpha or beta, is no argument. Ubuntu 6.06 includes a cvs version of the rt2500 driver which my card uses, which has support for SMP. It's still developmental, sure, but at least they include something that works. basing a system on old releases doesnt help either. the rt2500 version included with this mandriva release (1.1.0-b2) is a version older than the latest release (1.1.0-b3). that latest release had been made months before mandriva came out. and you've probably heard me complain about their ancient kernel -- and lack of updates to newer kernels. it wouldnt be that difficult for them to push a package out -- and I know this, because I do it. I'm a developer on Arch, I dont get paid anything. Mandriva's developers get paid, they work on it day by day, but they cant release a remotely up to date distro. There is no excuse for that. We all owe a lot to all those free-software-driver developers, without whom Linux wouldn't be where it is today. Indeed, thanks to their hard work, most device do work. agreed. Yet the world is not all white or black. Some companies do distribute (or participate in) free software drivers for their devices; some don't do that but help the free software developers with usefull documentation. And yes, sometimes, distributions could be improved (WiFi...). some do, some dont, that's the way it is, many do contribute documentation, but this isnt noticed as for those that do, drivers are released without fuss. I'm sick of much of the philosophical crap that stops various distros distributing drivers out of the box. Take nvidia for example, a user should simply not have to install it, and if they don't includei t out of the box, there should at least be an easily available distro provided package. As an Arch dev, I made contact with nvidia to see if there was any issue in doing this, and there isnt, their license is designed to allow distribution by distros. James Edited June 3, 2006 by iphitus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffi Posted June 3, 2006 Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 (edited) Windows doesnt come with an nVidia driver either, you have to go to their site and install it, though the windows out of the box nVidia driver or VGA driver is a bit better than Xorgs driver... Why I was afraid of linux: -commandline -wouldnt be able to use my favourite programs anymore -crappy ntfs support -> I wouldnt be able to access most my data -crappy hardware support (<- this actually stopped me for a long time untill I thought my adsl usb modem died, which wasnt supported, and I had to buy a new modem) -commandline -commandline -why change a winning system? I never had had problems with XP in 3 years -commandline Edited June 3, 2006 by ffi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted June 3, 2006 Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 (edited) Windows doesnt come with an nVidia driver either, you have to go to their site and install it, though the windows out of the box nVidia driver or VGA driver is a bit better than Xorgs driver... Why I was afraid of linux: -commandline mentioned this before -wouldnt be able to use my favourite programs anymore because people dont know the alternatives -crappy ntfs support -> I wouldnt be able to access most my data half furphy, you can access it all, but cant write. your distro should mount it up for you too, you should never see your fstab -crappy hardware support (<- this actually stopped me for a long time untill I thought my adsl usb modem died, which wasnt supported, and I had to buy a new modem) why doesnt mdk support speedtouch out of the box or provide a simple program, or instructions to use it... -why change a winning system? I never had had problems with XP in 3 years that's a damned good reason, and honestly, there's no arguing with that. James Edited June 3, 2006 by iphitus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthur Posted June 4, 2006 Report Share Posted June 4, 2006 -why change a winning system? I never had had problems with XP in 3 years I have one problem with XP...XP is boring :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkelve Posted July 6, 2006 Report Share Posted July 6, 2006 (edited) I'd like to add some more thoughts... I salvaged a pretty nice laptop, only the screen was broken. So I bought a shiny new 19 inch display for it... now I can go sit and work outside in this hot summer, with this nice and HUGE display (instead of a laptop display, which are mostly crap...) As the OS my choice is SuSe 9.3. I got SuSe 10.1 and I'd use that, but the DVD drive somehow will only *boot* CD-roms, not DVD's. Too bad the wireless card that came with it doesn't work (not detected properly), but then again neither does it in Windows (detected but can't make a connection). The reason why Linux is such a good choice is that it's fast and responsive (moreso then the windows XP that's on it), pleasant to work in (moreso then the windows XP that's on it), and all the software I'll EVER need is on the SuSe CD's, so it doesn't really matter that much that I can't make an internet connection. I'm going to use it for (offline) web development... if I really want to test it, I can always run Apache on it... right on the CD's and easily installed with Yast. Plugged in the screen, configured with Sax2... all very nice and easy. Windoze did not have drivers so it was stuck at 1024*768. Not meant to be a SuSe ad, Mandriva would've been fine too, but since I did not use my 9.3 CD's any longer... I'm probably going to buy Crossover Office to run Photoshop (can miss Dreamweaver, can't miss Photoshop) and Internet Explorer for compatibility testing. I think for those purposes, it sure beats windoze... Edited July 6, 2006 by Darkelve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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