On 3/25/2013 5:48 AM, clipka wrote:
> Am 20.03.2013 17:03, schrieb Timwi:
>> On 16/03/2013 18:27, clipka wrote:
>>>
>>> As for "massively" inconveniencing "all" Windows users: Most Windows
>>> users have been happy to run their renders from within the GUI, and
>>> Windows never really made batch processing easy anyway, so people
>>> requiring batch processing would typically turn towards Linux in the
>>> first place.
>>
>> Only opinionated Linux users can seriously think that :(
>
> That statement of yours can easily be disproven: I'm a mouse-pushing
> Microsoft addict, who even appreciates some of their products, and I
> personally think that for desktop systems GNU/Linux is still no serious
> alternative to Windows; and I'm a layman when it comes to administering
> a Linux system (even though I'm a professional software developer), to
> the point that I detest administering Linux systems. But when there's
> serious batch processing to do, I'd take Linux any time, and even go
> through the hassle of setting up a system myself.
>
> So there exists at least one person who seriously thinks what I wrote,
> and isn't an opinionated Linux user.
>
>> There is nothing about Windows that makes command-line stuff like batch
>> processing *so* hard that it would be worth it to install, run and learn
>> Linux.
>
Well, other than just about everything complex you need to do with 
windows batch needing either a) windows scripting, and/or b) small 
utility commands, which are just plain missing (and, frankly, when 
something as ancient as the old 4DOS command.com replacement would be a 
massive improvement to cmd.com, by itself, this is saying a lot. lol)

Batch hasn't changed since DOS 1.0, or something, for the most part, but 
we don't even have the command set that came "with" DOS3.3, never mind 
6.0, or any of the third party tools that extended it. Its purely pathetic.

The rest of windows.. has some things that are just bad, because they 
are not configurable, or won't let you do specific things, or make 
"guesses" about what you intend, that are just wrong. On the other hand, 
a lot of stuff does work, a lot better, like auto-mounting.

However, I would lay odds that if I plugged my HP 4500 printer into 
Linux, I could use it to scan documents. I have spent two days doing 
everything short of uninstalling my virus/firewall software, removing 
all the drivers, and then reinstalling the printer drivers, trying to 
get it to do jack all other than freeze up, trying to talk to the 
scanner, without even showing a dialog. Its probably AVG causing the 
problem, but.. I am reluctant to do an uninstall/reinstall to fix it, 
and, at this point, since I don't scan often anyway, I am not sure its 
worth the effort.

So..
GUI - Linux needs work.

Command prompt/batch - For anything semi-complicated, either Linux, or 
find an old copy of DOS 6.0, or the like, and install all the crap they 
decided we don't need any more.

Hardware compatibility - Windows will a) install wrong drivers, if it 
can't find the right ones, b) won't always install them right, c) you 
get bloody insane things, like your virus scanner actually interfering 
with USB ports. o.O But, when it works, detection is flawless, mounting 
is immediate, and you don't need to do any complex shit to make it work. 
Linux - if it can't figure out what something is, it won't work 
"period". If its mountable, you might have to monkey with some files, to 
automount it (this is getting better though), but, when it does know how 
to talk to the hardware, its **completely** flawless, as near as I can 
see, with no odd quirks, bugs, strange conflicts, or any of the, "Gosh! 
I don't know what this thing is, so lets just mark it as "unknown" and 
not even look for a driver, since, after all, Microsoft doesn't have an 
exhaustive list of drivers you can download, or even an exhaustive list 
of working generic drivers, which actually can tell how to use the 
hardware to full advantage.

So, yeah.. If you like pretty, and easy, Linux still has a ways to go, 
in most cases. If you want things to bloody work, out of the box, 
without having to hunt to driver disks, monkey with anti-virus bugs, and 
otherwise chase down solutions, which may not even exist, when things 
*do* go wrong.. good luck with Microsoft. lol

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