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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> You just happen to know that there's a program for doing this and it's
> called LAME. If you didn't already know that, I estimate it would take a
> while to figure it out.
That's the point: In Windows, even if I know exactly the program I want,
it still takes significantly longer to find and install it.
Nevertheless, rather than "lame", I could have written "mp3 encoder" in
the search field and it would have found LAME equally well.
--
- Warp
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nemesis <nam### [at] nospam-gmailcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Compare that to the situation where, in Windows, you don't have any software
> > to create mp3 files and you want to get one.
> You install winamp?
In 30 seconds (including starting the encoding process)? Haha. I'd like to
see that.
I bet it would take you 30 seconds just to get to winamp's website.
> sorry, that comparison of yours was kinda... lame. :P
> There are many good reasons to love Linux and dislike Windows, but
> that's not one of them. Like Orchid said, you knew about mp3-creating
> software called lame...
I don't think you understood what I was comparing. Nowhere did I mention
software availability.
--
- Warp
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Well, now in Debian you can just "apt-get install command-not-found" and get
> get that same functionality :)
Oh, cool. Thank you for that.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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Stephen wrote:
> I think that the biggest problem in this situation with windows is
> sifting out the rubbish apps that are available.
There's a lot of crap-ware for linux, too. It just doesn't get into the
"distributions," so there's already an impartial vetting function going on.
Nobody goes roaming around on sourceforge or google looking for
functionality that already works in the distribution.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
> You make a good case for Linux, there.
At least for power users, who know what they are doing. I readily admit
that Linux is, in some aspects, rather hard for beginners to approach (even
though it has got a lot better during the last decade; but there are still
some rough edges, although in some cases it's not so much Linux's own fault
as much as companies who have no or poor Linux support).
--
- Warp
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
> > I think that the biggest problem in this situation with windows is
> > sifting out the rubbish apps that are available.
> There's a lot of crap-ware for linux, too. It just doesn't get into the
> "distributions," so there's already an impartial vetting function going on.
> Nobody goes roaming around on sourceforge or google looking for
> functionality that already works in the distribution.
One difference is also that the user can have an impact on the development
of a distro. You can go to the official forums/mailing lits of the distro
and suggest some improvement or whatever, and there's a good chance that
someone will actually listen and implement it. I have first-hand experience.
I don't see Microsoft roaming through the millions of messages
Microsoft-related newsgroups and online forums probably have, and
implementing people's suggestions. Windows is "too" popular, with "too
many" users, and it's owned by a single company, so it's basically
impossible for them to listen to all of them.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> You make a good case for Linux, there.
>
> At least for power users, who know what they are doing.
Windows really is *not* that easy for people who don't know what they're
doing. How many horror stories of data lost because it was never backed up
have you heard? Complaints about Windows getting slower and slower, or the
wireless just randomly not working? Much of that is because the
non-power-user is screwing it up, or Dell or HP are loading the machine up
with crapware (like "wireless managers" and such) that makes it flakey.
The stuff from MS is actually rather robust. I've never had a "preinstalled"
Windows that I didn't wipe and install from Microsoft media after tearing my
hair out for a few hours trying to get it to run smoothly. And Vista is the
first Windows I've had install smoothly (probably because it's 64-bit, and
hence all the drivers come from Microsoft). The terrors of commercialism in
software. :-)
My neighbor can't be convinced that it's not necessary to open IE to get to
her email. She doesn't understand that the "read my mail" button in IE is
the same program that's already on her desktop and in the start menu. She
has no understanding of the computer, doesn't understand to check the cable
modem is plugged in if she doesn't get connectivity, has no idea why she has
12 different "toolbars" from Yahoo, AOL, Dell, google, etc in IE or how to
get rid of them, etc. I don't think whether it's Windows or Linux would
make any difference at all to her - it's all cheat-sheets saying which
buttons to press to accomplish each task, and any tiny deviation and she's
lost.
The next step up? I think (say) sales people who understand how to work the
machine could probably learn Linux as easily. I think where Linux falls
down, tho, is the lack of commercial-grade software. Accountants want
quickbooks and turbotax. Salesmen want Dynamics or some other CRM software.
Graphic artists don't think GIMP will substitute for Photoshop. Etc.
The only people I've heard *advocating* Linux are system administrators and
programmers, or people who are deploying it for price reasons. (Or both,
like "cloud" applications.) But even places where the product runs on
Linux, they tend to do the development on Windows machines, because that's
where Outlook and Excel and CRM programs and Quickbooks and all that sort of
stuff runs.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Windows is "too" popular, with "too
> many" users, and it's owned by a single company, so it's basically
> impossible for them to listen to all of them.
Rather funny. Reading that again, I notice that someone could mistake
that as me misusing quotes for emphasis, even though I really used them
legitimately, ie. to de-emphasize, ie. to mean "not to be interpreted
literally" (in other words. like: "too popular (well, not really, at least
not from Microsoft point of view)").
I wonder if the misconception about quotes-can-be-used-for-emphasis has
originated with something like that.
(Another theory I have is this: Cursive is often used in literature for
emphasis. Cursive is *also* used in literature, especially in articles and
academic texts, to denote things like titles (eg. publications or books).
When cursive is not available, then usually quotes are used for the same
purpose (eg. 'in his book "I, Robot", Asimov presents a grim view of the
future'). Since both cursive and quotes are interchangeable in things like
book titles, maybe someone got confused and thought that cursive and quotes
are also interchangeable when denoting emphasis.)
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> You make a good case for Linux, there.
>
> At least for power users, who know what they are doing. I readily admit
> that Linux is, in some aspects, rather hard for beginners to approach (even
> though it has got a lot better during the last decade; but there are still
> some rough edges, although in some cases it's not so much Linux's own fault
> as much as companies who have no or poor Linux support).
>
I tried Red Hat about 5 years ago but it never really grabbed my
interest. Open Office seemed too much trouble to learn as well. Having
just getting old.
Hmm! Last week I had to resort to using a BAT file in DOS to rename a
series of files for an animation.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> The only people I've heard *advocating* Linux are system administrators and
> programmers, or people who are deploying it for price reasons.
Which is sad, really. If a regular user who only checks his email, surfs
the web from time to time and maybe writes some letters, could be a lot
better off with Linux than with Windows. He wouldn't get the myriads of
adware/spyware, browser toolbars, email viruses, etc, the system would not
get congested with time due to every single legitimate and illegitimate
piece of software installing tons of useless (and sometimes harmful) stuff
everywhere, and the computer would overall be somewhat safer from regular
attempts at hacking (eg. by email worms, rootkits, etc). It would be cheaper
too.
Some people argue that Linux might be ok as long as there are no problems,
but immediately when some problem happens the newbie user will be completely
clueless about what to do because solving problems in Linux requires more
expertise. However, most Windows users are equally clueless as well, so it
doesn't really make much of a difference. They still have to call the
neighbor's kid or take the machine to the shop.
With Linux it would be much less likely be caused by a spyware or trojan.
--
- Warp
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