Linux has a long way to go before it becomes the major OS

01-22-2004, 07:45 AM

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=4181071

01-22-2004, 08:18 AM

-J-C- wrote:

> http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=4181071

oke doke...

after checking the article actually exists at the given url:

"Now, if only they could get the word processor's basic "cut and paste"
feature to work."

1) I just copied and pasted that from the article
2) Either he is just making it up, or he doesnt know how to use his mouse,
or is assuming the keyboard shortcuts are the same as windows - which they
are if you tell it to - he probably doesn't know how
3) GPM works for just about anything - select text, middle click where you
want to paste it.

"It's a big pile of lumber with no agreed-upon standards," complained White,
president of St. Paul, Minnesota-based software company CodeWeavers.

LSB, FHS etc - united linux is a proposed standard (although not popular atm
as SCO is a member, however so is SUSE)
how about windows's open standards?
1) Active Directory
2) NTFS
etc

"Linux desktops need a little more work to be consistent," said Jack
Messman, chairman and chief executive of Novell Inc. "I don't know how much
of that will come about this year."

Consistency - just look at SUSE or RedHat bluecurve - how more consistent
can you get?

Windows - most popular "home user" programs are skinned, to be inconsistent
with their desktop eg winamp, even windows media player!

"Its users are required to share the computer code they create."

Bullshit. It's users are required to share the computer code they create
only if they CHOOSE to license it under a gpl-style license.

"Office documents created using Microsoft Windows PCs can be saved and
reopened on Linux PCs without suffering the sort of software conflicts that
cause programs to crash. This mundane compatibility is a crucial test of
Linux's viability as a potential replacement for Windows. "

More specifically - "software conflicts that cause programs to crash" -
what is this to do with running MS Office? i have never had a problem with
an MS office document in OOo 1.1

"Market research company International Data Corp., of Framingham,
Massachusetts, estimates that paid shipments of Linux rose to 2.8 percent
of desktop operating systems in 2002, up from 1.7 percent two years
earlier. But that is still below the approximately 3 percent share of No. 2
ranked Apple Computer Inc., which more than a decade ago gave up trying to
compete directly with Microsoft. "

note "paid shipments" - ie this is completely ignoring people who have:
1) Done an FTP install of something like SuSE
2) Downloaded ISO images
3) Installed from a friends cd

Looks like the author has no idea what they are talking about.

Fred

01-22-2004, 09:03 AM

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 00:45:31 -0800, <-J-C-> wrote:

> http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=4181071

Yup. Looks like a bunch of spam to me alright.
Who's paid the author: CodeWeavers or Xandros ?

FWIW: i have been useing either: Slackware, Debian, Mandrake, SuSE or
RedHat Linux distros for some years now. And don't have _any_ of the
problems the article talks about ...

Ofcource, i'm _not_ looking for some kind of click-a-di-click MS-Windows
on steroids, MS-Office running hybrid. Rather something that works for me.

ATM, "desktop" apps: FVWM2, gvim, Xman, Mozilla, Pan, XMMS and Xine.
working fine!

> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
> <html>

Please, stick with plain text - in these groups.

[ ... ]

--
-Menno.

01-22-2004, 01:41 PM

This was crossposted to:

alt.os.linux.slackware
alt.os.linux.suse
comp.os.linux.hardware
comp.os.linux.networking
comp.os.linux.x
comp.os.linux.security

As far as I can tell, it is off-topic in every newsgroup it was
posted to.

I can't speak for other groups, but could those who reply please
trim alt.os.linux.slackware from the newsgroups line? Thanks!

(Followups set to comp.os.linux.advocacy)

--
Guy Macon, Electronics Engineer & Project Manager for hire.
Remember Doc Brown from the _Back to the Future_ movies? Do you
have an "impossible" engineering project that only someone like
Doc Brown can solve? My resume is at http://www.guymacon.com/

01-23-2004, 11:08 PM

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.hardware.]
On 2004-01-22, <-J-C-> <NO_NO_jaa_cee_@hotmail.com> wrote:
> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
> --------------83514FFB5FC804E7A05DB999
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

[and so on, for over eighteen-hundred friggin' lines of marked-up text]

Was that really necessary? Couldn't you have summarized and provided a
simple link to the article? Or is that beyond the capabilities of the
cut-n-paste generation?

--
John ((E-Mail Removed))

01-24-2004, 09:01 PM

The author may not have any idea, but he is right.

Until linux is as simple to use as windows, it will never take off.

Now, before anyone tries to tell me that *I* don't know what I'm
talking about either, here's a case in point. In windows, the process
of installing takes (on my part) a minute or two at the most. I've
spent the last week or so, on and off trying to install mplayer, and I
still can't do it, and I still don't know why.

See this thread for more info....
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...com%26rnum%3D1

I'm not saying that linux (any distro) is a bad thing, but until it
can be used by your average windows user, without having to ask a guru
how the hell you do stuff(like installing packages), Linux will never
rival Windows on the desktop.

I want to like linux, but at the moment it's rather hard.

(A rather frutrated) TomN

01-24-2004, 09:40 PM

(E-Mail Removed) (Narsil) writes:

> The author may not have any idea, but he is right.
>
> Until linux is as simple to use as windows, it will never take off.
>
> Now, before anyone tries to tell me that *I* don't know what I'm
> talking about either, here's a case in point. In windows, the process
> of installing takes (on my part) a minute or two at the most. I've
> spent the last week or so, on and off trying to install mplayer, and I
> still can't do it, and I still don't know why.
>
> See this thread for more info....
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...com%26rnum%3D1
>
I feel sorry for your troubles.

All the software install for me on my gentoo box has been

emerge <required package>

That's all. This even beats those damn installers that winblows has.
Winblows installer don't tell you what it is doing, emerge tells me
exactly where it's at.

> I'm not saying that linux (any distro) is a bad thing, but until it
> can be used by your average windows user, without having to ask a guru
> how the hell you do stuff(like installing packages), Linux will never
> rival Windows on the desktop.
>
> I want to like linux, but at the moment it's rather hard.
>
> (A rather frutrated) TomN

--
- Pankaj

----------------------------------------------------------------------
One OS to rule them all, one OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Redmond where the Shadows lie.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

01-24-2004, 09:51 PM

(E-Mail Removed) (Narsil) writes:

> The author may not have any idea, but he is right.
>
> Until linux is as simple to use as windows, it will never take off.

What many people fail to realize is that the objective of Linux is not
to maximize the number of installations.

> Now, before anyone tries to tell me that *I* don't know what I'm
> talking about either, here's a case in point. In windows, the process
> of installing takes (on my part) a minute or two at the most. I've
> spent the last week or so, on and off trying to install mplayer, and I
> still can't do it, and I still don't know why.

mplayer is one of the trickier programs to do anything at all with.
If all you want to do is play some movies, go get xine.

--
Måns Rullgård
(E-Mail Removed)

01-24-2004, 11:14 PM

Clinging to sanity, (E-Mail Removed) (Narsil) mumbled into her beard:
> The author may not have any idea, but he is right.
>
> Until linux is as simple to use as windows, it will never take off.

It already _has_ taken off, as many of us have been making it useful
for a goodly decade now.

It is useful to us irrespective of whether someone wants to make up
some "fight" between it and Microsoft, or whether or not you find it
useful yet.

(A rather frutrated) Christopher Browne
--
output = ("cbbrowne" "@" "ntlug.org")
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/finances.html
Signs of a Klingon Programmer #7: "Klingon function calls do not have
'parameters' -- they have 'arguments' -- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM."

01-24-2004, 11:24 PM

Christopher Browne <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Clinging to sanity, (E-Mail Removed) (Narsil) mumbled into her beard:
> > The author may not have any idea, but he is right.

> > Until linux is as simple to use as windows, it will never take
> > off.

> It already _has_ taken off, as many of us have been making it
> useful for a goodly decade now.

No, it most certainly has not taken off, although the ibm campaign
should make some people see it as an alternative server.

> It is useful to us irrespective of whether someone wants to make
> up some "fight" between it and Microsoft, or whether or not you
> find it useful yet.

But the issue is whether linux is better in all respects to
microsoft. Many on here will argue that it is.

cordially, as always,

rm

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