On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 04:39:15PM -0700, Jason S wrote: > From: "Byron A Jeff" > Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 3:17 PM > > > Untrue. That's the line that the Winbots in comp.os.linux.advocacy use. > > Linux has coverage for most of the top ticket items that users want to do: > > Web Browse, E-mail, Office apps, Media, and Games (to a degree). And one > can > > function with these types of apps without ever writing a script or popping > > up a shell. > > Interesting that your defense of linux requires resorting to namecalling > "Winbots". Keep in mind though that I'm not a "Winbot", It's not namecalling. On comp.os.linux.advocacy, they are Winbots. A collection of posters that have a deliberate campaign to sow seeds of dissent in that newsgroup. I was describing the line, not you as the author. > but a long time > linux user who has given up on linux on the desktop. Linux is built upon a > culture of elitism. > As far as that coverage. It just doesn't work. Let's see that Media > support deal with my ATI All-in-wonder TV tuner card. There is some sort of > TV tuner app that pre-installed with slackware. It even seems to support my > card, but all I get is snow. I wasted a lot of hours reading the very > limited documentation, tweaking all the controls, and getting nowhere. I know where you're coming from on that. We took different paths when we got to that fork in the road. I understand your path. Here's mine: instead of trying to get Linux software to conform to the hardware that I have, I always purchase hardware that Linux has support (and preferably well documented support) for. I support the vendors and developers that have taken the time to get the software to work. Again I understand your expectation. You have hardware, Linux should work with it. Simple. But it's hardware that typically is designed to work for some version of Windows. I always see a small miracle everytime some printer, camera, or other dohickey works at all. I find it to be a testament to the fortitude of a community fighting a uphill battle. > Office apps? I have a USB Photosmart printer. Get the Open Office word > processor to print to it. I'm pretty sure that will work (though support > wasn't avilable yet last time I booted X), but it will take a lot of work > setting up the printer drivers. I may now have an avenue for you to test it. Knoppix is really good at this type of task. It should take 5 minutes to test out: 1. Boot Knoppix. 2. Configure your printer from the K->KNOPPIX->Configure Printer dialog. 3. Start OO.o from the task bar. 4. Test and print. CUPS is doing some amazing things with printer setup. It may be time to take another look. > > As a user, I don't want to deal with these headaches. In windows, I plug my > printer into the computer's USB port for the first time, it prompts for the > driver CD, installs automagically, and reboots (yes reboots - that's not a > 4-letter word). 3 minutes after connecting the printer, I'm ready to print. I have a story on this process outlined above. I was doing some work for my kids' school. And while the process you outlined above is how it work, I had the roughest time keeping it stable: 1 machine would print once, then lock up. I ended up having to set it up to print to a remote printer. Another would not load the driver from CD, or use the already installed copy of the driver. Another would simply randomly lose its print config and had to be reinstalled every few days. Talk about headaches. > With linux I'd still be staring at the first page of google search results > by the time I'm finished printing my first document in windows. Try my test above. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is. > > > It's only tangentially for the end user. Having the source serves a few > > purposes: > > 1) If it's broke, then someone other than the original author can fix it. > I'm > ... > > 2) Coupled with this is that with the source, applications can upgrade > when > ... > > 3) No danger of when the author or a company disappears that suddenly > there's > > This is all just spouting open source propaganda. You're not even referring > to drivers, it seems like you cut and pasted that from somewhere else. I've done my own homework thank you. > Yes > that's all true. But if D-Link released the source for the driver for my > WiFi cardbus card, how does that help me, as an end user use the card with > linux? That's my original question. The list above directly relates to that. Companies stop support hardware all the time. Go check out the Iomega Buz that I use for recording/playing video. Iomega kicked it to the curb a couple of years ago. If I had to trust them for support, I'd be out of luck. There are binary only drivers that work for only one specific version of the kernel. You can't upgrade without it breaking. It's not propoganda. There are real issues here. > > > Slack is also cool in that there are simple config tools (netconfig, > pppconfig, > > xorgconfig and the like) that will walk a user through the process. But > > instead of forcing the user to use it, it's just a simple convenience. > > Agreed. As I've said, slack is my preferred distro. I generally use > netconfig and then tweak the rc.inet[1|2] files for example. > > > I'm warming to Debian. The apt system, like Gentoo's emerge, is a powerful > > motivator. Slack's complete lack of package dependency management is > sometimes > > quite painful. Wanting to install something from source is a lot more > dicey > > when upon configure you find that you need 3 or 4 separate other packages > > in order to do the job. > > I haven't tried Debian for a long time. I like the apt system on YDL > though, so I can see a strong argument to migrate to something that uses it. > The worst was when I installed Mod-Perl on slackware 3.3. I kept a list of > all the packages I had to install to satisfy the dependancies. It was in > the 20's. It took 5 hours the first time, and then about 45 minutes the > second time on the production server :) -- It is annoying to have to spend > so much time reading docs to do one simple little thing. Of course, the > next version of Slack came with it pre-installed. It's the one thing that's getting me to the point of switching permanently. > > > I've installed Slack 10 on my laptop. I found this time I was somewhat > > annoyed in having to configure X then Knoppix/Debian set it up for you > > automagically. > > The xf86config utility is quite easy to use though. New system. It's called xorgconfig now. It took me 10 minutes to find it. > I've never managed to > get the default screen modes part to work though. I don't think I have a > single machine with a working copy of X right now, and it really doesn't > bother me. As I stated before, I couldn't easily function without it now. To each his own. > > > Actually it does. It makes you much more picky about hardware. My first > > question is "Is there a kernel driver for it?" If the answer is no, then > I'm > > not buying. And more importantly I inform the Windows users that I know > not > > to buy it either. PUNISH THOSE HARDWARE VENDORS! > > The question is who suffers more from the lost sale. You will likely pay > more for a piece of hardware that is less exactly what you want. The > company's directors aren't going to lose sleep over one lost sale on 100k > units. Linux is about 5% of the market; the companies that don't support > linux care less about losing 5% of their sales than you care about not using > the product. You missed the influence part. BTW recent estimates based on a variety of measure puts Linux penetration somewhere between 12-14%. And if those folks influence a percentage of Windows users, it can have a significant impact. An example in the positive direction. I've had good luck with the HP Officejet 1210 3-1 multifunction. I can print/scan/copy. Due to my influence my mother, my sister, and my niece have the same unit. The latter 2 are Windows users. They bought on my recommendation. That's influence. > > I could say I think George Lucas is a slime-ball who's ruining the Star Wars > franchise and ripping-off his loyal fans for profit, so I'm not going to see > SW:3 in theaters. The thing is I'd probably care more about missing it on > the big screen than he would about losing my $7. He'd probably get a good > laugh out of it if I told him I was boycotting it for that reason. I understand where you're coming from with the drop in the bucket theory. But if you could influence 10 million not to see it, it would have a different impact. And BTW there are hardware vendors that are listening. Folks like LinkSys and HP are working with Linux developers to make sure that drivers and specs are available. And they have seen bumps in their sales because of it. BAJ -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu