Cold

[altivo]

It's in the teens again.

And I think I'm catching the cold Gary had all last week. Yuck.

At least the flood level outside has dropped, severely in fact. All over the place we have huge cracked slabs of ice where the water underneath has receded and the ice floating on top of it collapsed under its own weight.

Woven fabric is washed, dried, and ironed ready for the next study session tomorrow morning. I worked like mad this afternoon to catch up stuff piled on my desk, which may be a good thing between taking half the day off tomorrow and the sick sneezing and coughing I'm afraid I feel coming on.

<rant>You know, I'm tired of reading cracks about how Linux or BSD or OSX can't do any 'real' work and aren't ready for 'prime time'. I've been doing 100% of my daily work on Linux for a good three years now, including some very hefty database operations and all the usual spreadsheets and document creation. I do image processing there too, and web browsing, and all my e-mail. A year ago I switched all the public computers in the library to Linux and hardly anyone noticed. They still do the same things they always did, only they don't need twelve software licenses payable annually to do it and they don't keep crashing because some kid found another loophole in the patched together Windows security. Next time you feel like faulting Linux, consider this: maybe its just that you couldn't figure out how to use a real multiuser/multitasking OS. A lot of us do use it without difficulty.</rant>

Comments

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

*applaud*

There was a funny and accurate post tailen dropped a link to a few days back, the profile of the "well-intentioned Linux troll". It was on the Ubuntu forums, and the poster shot down the logic that such trolls usually use. Yes, they may be well-intentioned, but just because they're very intelligent Windows power-users and are used to doing everything a specific, easy way under Windows doesn't mean Linux is bad. And they really don't help by incessantly nattering about how faulty Linux distributions are and how they're not ready for the desktop. The poster elegantly pointed out that as long as an OS can do the six basics without trouble, it's ready for the desktop. Something like:

1) Word processing
2) WWW browsing
3) Email checking
4) The playing of silly minigames.
5) Instant messaging
6) (I forget what #6 is, but you get the gist, probably softcore multimedia or something)

Many Linux distributions are ready for most users, who wouldn't notice if all they got were the things above. And I can get everything I want to work satisfactorily and I'm definitely in the range of power user, though perhaps not necessarily in some very specific applications such as for graphics work and the like.

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

I decided to see if I could find the post I referred to, and amazingly enough, since Google works under Linux (*snicker*), I was able to locate it.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=7fa4c72bbcbb75ab890e5401a5ae780f&t=58017

Well worth a read, it does sound like a couple of folks I know who I know are more than capable of making the most out of Linux, but threw up their hands and proclaimed loudly that it just wasn't ready for the desktop after trying a distro or two.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I see two issues that keep cropping up. The first is hard resistance to command line operation, a refusal to even consider learning any of that where most Linux versions still require at least a little of it now and then. The second is the fact that UNIX is designed from almost exactly the opposite philosophy that Windows took. People who grew up believing that Windows is the way computers ARE have a terrible time realizing that isn't so. Those of us who already had used multiple operating environments know that Windows is the odd one out but just happens to have been leveraged into the market very effectively. It's not the best seller because it's good, but only because everyone else is using it so it's the path of least resistance.

[miktar.livejournal.com]

Personally, I've yet to come across a distro I like to use. I have nothing against Linux (although the zealots do bug me, but the same is true for zealots of any persuasion or software denomination), I simply don't gel with the conventions. A bit like the Photoshop vs Gimp or 3DS vs Blender arguments , really, although the scope and scale is naturally different between, say, Windows vs Linux or MacOS vs Linux.

From a monetary point of view however, you get no argument from me that *ix is the better choice, especially for organizations.

[corelog.livejournal.com]

Hey, I definitely think Linux is ready for prime time. And you know very well that I fault only myself for not being able to handle Linux. Sure, I make it sound as though it's Linux's fault for not installing the way I want it to. But when it comes right down to bare bones, you and I both know (and I freely acknowledge) that it simply means I can't hack Linux.

I could very easily use Kubuntu or Ubuntu, for example, as a desktop machine. Wouldn't look back. But because I'm trying to do more than just a desktop machine, I keep failing. Dismally. You know how much that upsets me. I just have to get up the gumption to try it again, probably with a Kubuntu server install. But by now I'm so scared of failure that it takes me months to screw up the nerve to try it again. I've far exceeded my allotted time to learn. Trying it beyond the limit is just tempting fate.

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

I've been through much what it sounds like your experience was, I'd consider my tinkering with Linux over the past 10 years to largely be a "failure" since it never made it past the tinkering stages, there was always something that just didn't work right that I just couldn't live without. I made it easy on myself this last time because I decided I simply would not fail, and just set up a Linux test-eval box and got it running to my satisfaction before shutting down the working daemons on my XP Pro workstation/server. I went through a few distros before setting on Kubuntu (it was the first that actually managed to install correctly), then went through several different daemons and just tinkered with it for a few hours from there until I figured out how to get everything configured and running. It's just bad news if you're learning under pressure to get results fast, the last thing you need is that panic-frustration that comes from OMG, NOTHING IS WORKING AND IT'S 2AM AND I HAVE WORK TOMORROW, MY DOMAINS ARE DOWN AND I'M FOOKED, WHY DID I EVEN START THIS CRAP?!!! sorts of experiences.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

I've been using Ubuntu for several years now, and would never go back. Apparently there is a clause in the new EULA for Vista that you cannot take it upon yourself to work around any flaws. Thus making it illegal to fix the product's faults. I don't have a copy of the EULA for Vista. Can you confirm this?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not me. I can't confirm anything about Vista other than the fact that it's a sellout by Microsoft to the entertainment cartel. I don't want to see it, and I hope I never do.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

No arguments here. :)

[hrrunka]

I think your library application is probably a near-perfect example of a place where Linux is a winner, and I was amused to see a Computerworld columnist this week suggesting small businesses "short on IT staff but long on IT needs" should consider Macs. My brother switched his and my mother's home systems from PC to Mac last year because keeping the PCs secure and running on the end of wet-string dial-up (which is all they have in Kenya) was a hopeless task. The latest viruses often got through because the virus definition files didn't, and Windows Update was a non-starter.

I recently switched from a Linux workstation to an iMac at home, mainly because of the packaging. I needed something slim and quiet which could handle music and let me play with 3D modelling. The one thing I couldn't get at an affordable price was sufficiently quiet PC hardware to run linux on. I still use linux for my home server and firewall machines though.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I know nothing about what might be available in the UK for hardware, I guess. My beef with Apple at this point is mostly their outrageously inflated pricing. Before OSX, it was the operating system I couldn't stand.

When I chose a new PC for my own use at home 18 months ago, I had no trouble. I picked a Dell minitower (though other brands might have done as well, they had a good price at the time) with lots of RAM and HD space, and no operating system at all. There was no issue with ordering it that way, it came without any junk installed on the HD that I had to remove, no unwanted adware, no nothing. I plopped Linux and BSD onto it in two partitions and off it went. Ordering without any preinstalled OS or software saved about $250 on the price.

Despite all the complaining I hear about how hard it is to install Linux, Slackware installed just fine. Yes, I had to configure X, but that isn't so hard to do. Had I installed Kubuntu that would have been done for me. Getting the "winmodem" to run was a bit tricky, but compiling code in Slackware is not difficult. (In Kubuntu, when I tried, it was a nightmare.)

[hrrunka]

Yeah, my servers all run on relatively cheap hardware using Gentoo (aka "Cruelty to compilers") so building custom stuff is easy. However, they're nothing even close to silent. The Dell I use at work is also noisy enough to ruin an evening's listening to music or watching TV. The iMac wasn't cheap, but once I'd costed a suitably quiet PC and a new flat-screen display, it didn't look quite so exorbitant, and it's quiet enough to use in the same room as the music and TV.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Does this mean my anti snow dance worked?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Only for a day. *points to snow falling outside his window*

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

*goes back to dancing*

[cetasdolphin.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your cold here I hope it passes for you quickly. Whenever I got sick here I was out for weeks though I felt physically alright.

As for the whole Windows and Linux debate. My two cents on the matter (though someone probably brought it up already) is that most users of PCs will use Windows only because they can't play any of the more popular gaming on Linux or are too ignorant to figure out how I think.

I usually play a lot of MMOGs here and about the only one that has an active Linux user base is Second Life. I haven't heard of anyone playing WoW on Linux or even games like Counterstrike or Half Life (I think you specifically need Windows to even run Steam). Everyone knows that PCs used in home use (and some snuck in office use) for entertainment purposes after email and websurfing. If I am wrong in this matter then I am sorry I open my mouth but was just trying to offer my insight.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's true that those vastly popular game programs never seem to come in Linux versions, but that's not the fault of Linux. It's just the attitude of the companies that make the games. If more users demanded Linux versions, they would happen. Both Second Life and WoW can be played on Linux now, BTW, and I know people who do both that way.

In any case, saying that you can't run your favorite-can't-live-without-it application on Linux isn't the same as saying that Linux is just a toy that doesn't work. It's the latter attitude that I've had enough of.