Submitted by “Like cold fusion or a painless weight-loss plan, a user-friendly version of Linux remains elusive. But developers are getting closer with Ubuntu – a free, Linux-based operating system that appeared in October 2004 and is winning over waves of converts, including high-profile geeks like Cory Doctorow.”
“Are any key programs missing?
Not really, but you have to do extra work to get MP3- and DVD-playing software. Both formats are proprietary, so they aren’t distributed with the all-freeware Ubuntu. Enabling digital music, for example, requires installing about a dozen file packages (with bizarre names like “gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse”), and enduring occasional encounters with the terminal window to enter commands.”
Well, 2 packages in add/remove panel. A dozen, really ?
“Can Ubuntu completely replace Windows or Mac OS X?
Probably not. It doesn’t work perfectly out of the box. And even if you do get it working smoothly, you may miss industry-standard professional programs, such as Photoshop and Adobe InDesign, or entertainment software such as iTunes and video games. The best strategy for most people is to run Ubuntu on the side as a hobby, gradually learning its intricacies. “Try things out before you really need to do them, so you avoid panic,” said Grant.”
Some people need to understand that Photoshop, iTunes, games or InDesign are not the lambda user tool.
Bullshit remains bullshit.
I have played DVDs with kaffeine-xine.
Are not the what?
“[T]he lambda user tool.”
In other words, the be-all and end-all, or the best software solution available for the job at hand.
Edited 2006-08-29 21:47
“popular image-editing program The Gimp, which rivals Adobe Photoshop.”
Rival on making web button and background?
So? That’s all average users need. Most grandmas aren’t professional artists.
Poor understanding of the situation…nor do seem to understand that Ubuntu is “Free Software” not just free to download.
MP3s do not play because there is a cost from a patent holder to distribute the player.. even though the player is 100% GPL, the patent applies, so no dice.
UNENCRYPTED DVDs play just fine in the base install! out of the box, no problems. Again, to play commercial DVDs requires a license to the encryption, again, money and patents and DMCA.. so no “free” solution… note Windows does not play DVDs out of the box either.. because Bill doesn’t pay per-unit royalties as a matter of principle.
If you are in a LEGAL location, these issues can be fixed with one download of EasyUbuntu or Automatix. Works great, only 3 command lines to run the program. One thing Ubuntu should do is to put the ubuntuforums.org on the firefox bookmark toolbar directly.. that is the best linux help site by leaps and bounds!
AS far as commercial software… it’s commercial! It’s not free, they can do what they want with it… and they don’t want to make it for linux. Comming soon that will be their loss. Either play with apple that’s growing their own solutions or stay with MS that eats your lunch.. but commercial software needs a new market soon. Not supporting Linux is their loss.
As far as commercial software… it’s commercial! It’s not free, they can do what they want with it… and they don’t want to make it for linux. Comming soon that will be their loss. Either play with apple that’s growing their own solutions or stay with MS that eats your lunch.. but commercial software needs a new market soon. Not supporting Linux is their loss.
Sorry, wrong answer. Commercial software already has a huge market selling their wares to the business world. The vast majority of businesses run Microsoft products. It works for them, all their employees know how to use these products to get their jobs done, so they see no reason to change. Especially when changing means spending significant amounts of money in training costs and lost productivity while their employees get up to speed on the new software.
Hey, I’d love to see GNU/Linux take over the world. In my view, it’s much better than anything from Microsoft. But business reality dictates otherwise.
Maybe a few years ago you were correct, but if you have been keeping up with the news over the last year or so, you would have noticed that countries all over the world are dropping Microsoft solutions and taking Linux based solutions.
This is for a number of reasons, removing licensing fees, removing vendor lock-in, removing constant upgrading costs.
Examples are;
China – government, schools, businesses
Australia – government, schools
UK – government, hospitals
Norway – government, schools
Germany – government, transportation, hospitals
France – government, schools
Philipines – governemt, schools
India – government, schools
Notice a trend here ?
Examples are;
China – government, schools, businesses
Australia – government, schools
UK – government, hospitals
Norway – government, schools
Germany – government, transportation, hospitals
France – government, schools
Philipines – governemt, schools
India – government, schools
Notice a trend here ?
Yes. The only examples you gave that involve BUSINESS is China, a communist country violently opposed to purchasing western technology. EVERY other example involves government or arms of government, and most in either communist or socialist countries. I am not personally against the use of Linux in any of these circumstances, and I in fact use it myself, but the previous poster’s point stands: The vast majority of businesses are content to stick with Windows for desktop use, and that is simply not changing any time soon. To think oterwise is denying reality.
Hospitals is a bigger deal than business: Hospitals are safety critical and should be quite picky.
Businesses will be slow to adopt anything because it’s expensive and they’re generally all about the monetary bottom line (and only the bottom line for today).
Hospitals is a bigger deal than business: Hospitals are safety critical and should be quite picky.
Hospitals in Germany are run by the government… Other than the fact that they practice medicine and have nurses instead of clerks, they are the operational equivalent of a DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles).
Bull. How many DMV’s do you know whose clerks look after people on respirators and dialysis?
You do realise that they’re not socialist, but mixed market.
Oh, and socialist; how about the US and subsidising agriculture; or how about quota’s on imports to protect inefficient local industries. Oh, how about the grand daddy of them all, the forcing of telecoms to roll out fibre optics in ALL areas, irrespective of how uneconomically viable it is.
Oh, and socialist; how about the US and subsidising agriculture; or how about quota’s on imports to protect inefficient local industries. Oh, how about the grand daddy of them all, the forcing of telecoms to roll out fibre optics in ALL areas, irrespective of how uneconomically viable it is.
There is nothing socialist about any of those things… There is a big, huge, enormous difference between government regulation/sudsidies and government ownership.
And yes, to be fair Germanay IS a mixed market system. 40% of the hospitals in Germany are owned by the government and another 40% are non-profit (usually run by religious organizations). The remaining 20% are privately owned businesses. But that doesnt actually change my point because the deal IBM struck with Germany to supply Linux-based system (which is I assume the reason Germany was included as it was) only affects the government owned facilities.
And yes, to be fair Germanay IS a mixed market system. 40% of the hospitals in Germany are owned by the government and another 40% are non-profit (usually run by religious organizations). The remaining 20% are privately owned businesses. But that doesnt actually change my point because the deal IBM struck with Germany to supply Linux-based system (which is I assume the reason Germany was included as it was) only affects the government owned facilities.
So the actual point you’re making, has nothing to do with socialism, and everything to do with the fact that public institutions tend to be more willing to partake in ‘risky’ (according to private sector assessment) changes – for example, moving from Windows to Linux as a default desktop.
What you fail to realise is that if the transition IS successful, and the appropriate government departments provide white papers on the transition, you might then see private sectors, who closely resemble the IT structure of the said government department, to deploy Linux themselves; you could say that public sector embracing of Linux is the doorway to further adopt by the private sector.
Regarding the health system; the other fact is this; no one forces you to go through the public health system; in New Zealand, there is a waiting list for the public hospital, but like the US, there is nothing stopping someone from buying health insurance and going through the private healthcare system. A socialist model would be, no private healthcare system, part of the health system, from hospital to local GP clinic, would be all owned by the government, which it isn’t; look at any ‘public health care system’ around the globe, and you’ll find that the main primary health care providers are private clinics subsidised on a per patient system.
Yeah, but do you honestly think that retraining and purchasing new hardware for Windows Vista would be more cost effective than simply either keeping the install base they have, or switching to Linux and retraining without the hardware upgrades.
There actually ARE lots of Commercial applications that are ported over to Linux, especially in the professional 3D modeling category (Maya,Softimage, etc)
The business world generally will stick with whatever they have, unless their IT department can show the higher-ups what cost and stability benefits there can be from changing to Linux. I’ve heard the ‘retraining’ thing again and again, but let’s be more truthful here, OO.o is more like Office 2000 and 2003 than Office 12 (or whatever the new office is going to be called) is. That’s the one that will require retraining. As will Windows Vista.
A lot of businesses have switched over to Linux because they’re tired of paying the huge MS fees. Commercial application providers would be wise to start looking at all Operating Systems. If you think about how long MS and Apple have been around and yet with how many applications are ported to Linux, it’s actually quite impressive. Since MS and Apple have been around 25+ years, yet Linux started as a basic project only 15 years ago, not to mention the actual GUIs are only about 10 years old, it really has come leaps and bounds.
Are you a professional graphic designer? Have you used photoshop or indesign or illustrator extensively for years and then tried GIMP or Scribus or inkscape?
I used GIMP and sodipodi for a few years before I graduated to Adobe’s apps. I hate adobe but I can’t argue with the quality of their apps. The rich and detailed typographical controls I get with any of the Adobe apps over any of the OSS apps is enough to make me stay with adobe and windows/os x.
There’s more than that though and this stuff goes for InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, there’s rich transparency controls, fine-tuned PDF creation, industry standard file formats, better color space controls, better color management, better and more filters, better history, non-linear editing…the list literally goes on for a long time.
I love Ubuntu and want to see it grow better. I’m typing from it now on my laptop. There’s tons of cool things for it, and to be honest the desktop experience here has been far better than Windows and very close to OS X. But it simply doesn’t have the support of companies like Adobe, which are my life line.
I find your comment about it being BS almost insulting. It’s not BS, these apps really are better than their OSS “rivals”.
Go spout your angry, mislead vitriol elsewhere.
Dittobox; there is no use trying to explain somethings to people here; they’re adament that its us with the problem and we have to change. KInda like evangelicals and gays, apparently by getting abuse hurled at me, through some divine intervention, I’ll turn straight over night.
Apply to this situation, very few here have ever used Adobe products or infact any professional product out there; once you’ve used those tools, anything compared to them comes off crap – sure, compare GIMP with Paint included with Windows, but, like you said, it isn’t in the same league as what Adobe puts out.
“Can Ubuntu completely replace Windows or Mac OS X?”
The answer to this question is it depends on what you are doing. For example, I work at home using Fedora linux to browse the web, write reports in Open Office, run mysql database. I backup my files to a DVD burner using K3B. Play streaming music using realplayer 10. If you are doing standard office work and you have a good knowledge of linux then you can use Ubuntu as a replacement for Windows. The last time I rebooted in Windows mode was to run Turbo Tax. If you want games and perfect iTunes compatibility and a perfect linux equivalent of every Windows application you use then then you will be disappointed in linux desktop. An example of some of these problems: I wrote a report in Word 2003 with some simple VBScript that adds up fields in a report. When I moved it over to Open Office the macros stopped working. I never could get it to work right in Open Office.
Edited 2006-08-30 12:56
claimer: I use debian/PCLOS/FBSD and know about how to compile programs and am linux literate. i would really like to see linux succeed on desktop, even though my posts on OSN are like bitter medicines.
———————-
Linux-based operating system that appeared in October 2004 and is winning over waves of converts, including high-profile geeks like Cory Doctorow.”..
—
this type of propaganda articles have been published on OSN many times. yesterday it was about knoppix, then was linspire and xandros and now SUSE and Ubuntu are trying to convert masses to linux?
Skeptical ‘average users’ might give a try to linux but it will be interesting to know how many will stay with it forever given a fact that…
–convert realizes he/she can’t play media cd..
–convert can’t use ms office suite and exchange files with his friends. so he tries to convert his friends also to use OO.
–convert can’t play his favorite games…
–convert can’t connect wireless laptop
–convert can’t chat video conf with friends,
–convert cant edit xorg.conf, sane.d.conf and compile webcam or scanner software and not to mention droping to Famous command line after upgrade
After a month all of a sudden flash appears from sky, convert realizes that he has spent PRECIOUS TIME and is still searching forums for correctly working software on this divine system
Convert realizes there are other Important things in Life to do than, converting a painful free OS into a working OS.
Convert leaves superior cult, converts back to MS and happily spend his PRECIOUS TIME to retains his wife, kids and family with him.
Edited 2006-08-29 18:38
Honestly, if you don’t want to hear about Linux you shouldn’t be reading OSAlert.com. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Linux is news in this field of study because it’s free to use and free to study.
It’s really not that hard to skip past a story and not read it. And it’s much harder to read it and then complain about its posting.
This was one of the better “is Linux for me” articles I’ve seen. It was honest about the work you will probably end up doing, and about what you might have to do to get your programs working. It wasn’t comprehensive, but it wasn’t exactly marketing hype either.
I don’t think he was complaining about a link to an article, he was complaining about Linux itself. While I don’t agree with everything he said, he did raise some valid points.
He edges on insulting all that is FOSS by referring to these articles as propoganda and calling Linux a cult.
He doesn’t even bring up many issues the article didn’t bring up. So, kudos for being on topic, but a big -pathetic- for offering a strong rebuttal.
What gets me about these articles is that most of the people I can see reading them are in a position to critique them! By these I’m referring to articles written to Linux noobs.
I’ve decided I’m going to stop correcting the bull, the factual inaccuracies, the anti-Linux fanaticism, and go back to quietly using Linux and watching it take off.
You and your stress-free life doing useful work!
Heheheh. +1 for you
He edges on insulting all that is FOSS by referring to these articles as propoganda and calling Linux a cult.
How so? a person converts to Linux, finds it to be is ‘salvation’ and like an evangelical christian, he or she will prance around trying to convert everyone under the sun to his or her chosen persuasion.
I’ve got nothing wrong with a person showing off Linux or what ever their OS of choice is, if asked, but I do find it humorous that people talk about ‘choice’ but it seems that its only ok if it is the correct choice – choose any car, they’re all coloured black.
What I find even MORE humorous is so many Linux users are like the left wing – sure, you can have ANY opinion you want, just make sure that its the opinion that we agree with.
Mention anything like the original post which started the thread, and expect a fatwa declared and a jihad launched on your ass within hours; dare hold a view that Linux has a long way to go before it is ready for the desktop, and you’ll hear the scream ‘lalalalalalalala’ from the local über geek hell bent on slaying the infidel.
even MORE humorous is so many Linux users are like the left wing – sure, you can have ANY opinion you want, just make sure that its the opinion that we agree with.
It suddenly dawned on me last night why I hate all the “linux users in their basements” rubbish so much. The people spouting it sound like republican blowhards. Like republicans, they confuse “opinion” with “fact”.
It suddenly dawned on me last night why I hate all the “linux users in their basements” rubbish so much. The people spouting it sound like republican blowhards. Like republicans, they confuse “opinion” with “fact”.
There is another trademark scream from the Linux camp, assuming that all those who disagree with them must be of the alternative political movement.
Lets keep politics out of this and stick to the facts displayed before us; there is oodles of evidence on this forum alone to demonstrate the backlash one receives if one dares to offer an alternative opinion to the chant of ‘2006/2007/etc is the year of the desktop’ and ‘Linux can replace Windows/MacOS X on the desktop’.
It suddenly dawned on me last night why I hate all the “linux users in their basements” rubbish so much. The people spouting it sound like republican blowhards. Like republicans, they confuse “opinion” with “fact”.
There is another trademark scream from the Linux camp, assuming that all those who disagree with them must be of the alternative political movement.
In point of fact, that assumption was made by the poster *to whom I was replying*. My assertion that “The people spouting [the ‘linux users in their basements’ rubbish] sound like Republican blowhards” was meant only to indicate that they use the same tactics as that illustrious group, NOT that they are all of the Republican blowhard persuasion.
there is oodles of evidence on this forum alone to demonstrate the backlash one receives if one dares to offer an alternative opinion to the chant of ‘2006/2007/etc is the year of the desktop’ and ‘Linux can replace Windows/MacOS X on the desktop’.
There also “is oodles” of evidence to demonstrate not only the contrary, but also the “backlash one receives” if one dares to question the tenets of Chairman Gates, whether in this forum or many another.
There also “is oodles” of evidence to demonstrate not only the contrary, but also the “backlash one receives” if one dares to question the tenets of Chairman Gates, whether in this forum or many another.
Such as? n4cers polite corrections of peoples hyperbole statements? Oh, how terrible, a polite correction; so thats the worse one can expect from the Windows camp <rolls eyes> what next, they might start a civil conversation and outline the issues! say it ain’t so! say it ain’t so!
–convert realizes he/she can’t play media cd
Like what media CD? You mean the extra content that comes with some music CDs? You might be right there, since I suspect they may be windows exes. But if they’re normal videos, it won’t be a problem.
–convert can’t use ms office suite and exchange files with his friends
You can run MS Office suite, with Crossover. And you can exchange files in Office formats, with OO (granted, not always perfect, but I’ve used it throughout my undergrad degree with almost no problems).
–convert can’t play his favorite games
That depends what his/her favourite games are doesn’t it
I have a friend that loves Frozen Bubble for instance. But I’ll give you this one, Linux is not for gamers.
–convert can’t connect wireless laptop
Works fine on my wireless card. But up until recently, this was a problem.
–convert can’t chat video conf with friends
That depends on the program. No skype with video, but msn video chat works fine for instance (amsn, kopete, gaim).
–convert cant edit xorg.conf, sane.d.conf and compile webcam or scanner software and not to mention droping to Famous command line after upgrade
You shouldn’t have to. I haven’t had to mess with those files for ages.
That said, I don’t run linux often on my laptop. Why? Video drivers for my ATI card suck. Too bad, I like the environment much better than windows.
That depends on the program. No skype with video, but msn video chat works fine for instance (amsn, kopete, gaim).
Just what magical version of Gaim are you using? I’m using the latest beta and as far as I know, they haven’t merged in video conferencing yet.
Do you know, since 1998 every year some people called that year “year of linux desktop”, though they know very well Windows is dominating the market.
I think they mean when Linux will be on par with Windows, not when it has the most market share. And it’s not on par with Windows. It’s missing those few details, like a CD burner built into the file browser. KDE and GNOME are not fully polished yet, but maybr KDE 4.0 will change that. I’d give it until 2009 till Linux is equal to Windows.
Nautilus can burn an ISO or data files and i guess KDE (konqueror) does the same. maybe you dont know GNU/Linux Desktop state now..
Convert will learn that…
Wine works with some media CD’s now and is getting better.
The more support for Linux the more games chat will come out for it.
That drivers are getting better and the kernel gets updated often
The .conf files dont need to be changed in a text editor. That he can use the GUI tools.
That the update manager has a GUI. And that one command every six month is easer than going to the shop or paying for a upgrade that comes out every 5 years.
That choice is a good thing.
That computing should not get in the way of Family.
Some get addicted to OSS – some dont .
+1 because your comment is true for those that dont get addicted
Not al your points are valid for all distros.
Take Linspire for example (with whom Ive managed to learn to respect their goals because they give the user what the normal non-geek non computer literate non computer obsessed user wants mostly – as far as is possible ATM on Linux – : Easy computing)
For a lot of users a computer is a tool not a “play ground” .
Linspire has click & run software & DVD/mp3 codecs etc.
It looks Windows-sy which “of course” makes it “evil” – but gives the user what he or she needs.
Most other distros IMO are not as user-friendly in this respect becuase codecs must be downloaded etc .
What Id love to see is for them to include stated out of the box Windows progs support via wine .
I dont use Linspire myself – I use SuSE – but for Joe or Josephine average it seems like the easiest way into Linux .
“Converting” a GEEK to another Linux distro is – well – a geek among us – not a “normal” user .
Sorry for the stereotyping & severe simplyfication but I think you all get what I mean .
EDIT : I refuse to already see 256 MB as little memory.
Wow +5 troll. Apparently you folks can’t spot a troll unless it’s a blazingly obvious one, right in your face. None, not one, of the issues listed is even an issue.
–convert realizes he/she can’t play media cd..
really? I was jammin some Metallica last night. Must have been my imagination.
–convert can’t use ms office suite and exchange files with his friends. so he tries to convert his friends also to use OO.
I send documents to my boss on a daily basis, created in OO.o and saved in .doc format.
–convert can’t play his favorite games…
My favorite game happens to be Diablo 2, also runs just fine under wine. WOW, the current most popular game out there, runs under wine as well.
–convert can’t connect wireless laptop
Again, must be my imagination, but there are at least 9 people that I work with, that have Linux laptops on wireless.
–convert can’t chat video conf with friends,
Again Bullsh*t
–convert cant edit xorg.conf, sane.d.conf and compile webcam or scanner software and not to mention droping to Famous command line after upgrade
No need to, and there hasn’t been a need to for quite some time.
“My favorite game happens to be Diablo 2, also runs just fine under wine. WOW, the current most popular game out there, runs under wine as well. ”
Come on, lets not kid ourselves. While Linux is doing a great job at a lot of things, gaming isn’t one of them.
I didn’t say Linux was a gamers dream, but it’s hardly the Mac-like void people pretend it to be.
EDIT:Can’t spell
Edited 2006-08-30 04:22
No, clearly Linux isn’t the Mac-like void people pretend it to be. It’s far worse as there are loads of commercial games being released for Mac OS X, while there are only a handful of games being released for Linux.
While Linux users have to contend with the irritation of running games through Wine, most of the popular PC games are ported to the Mac (many with a drag/drop install!). Linux is nowhere near the Mac in terms of the games available.
have you never tried Cedega ?
insert install disk, game installs under Cedega, take disk out, play game….
note, I said take disk out…
unlike Windows, Cedega lets you play the games you install without you having to keep the disk in the drive.
ALSO
under Cedega, as the games are installed onto a superior filesystem, (any linux filesystem v ntfs), the game part load far faster.
For what?
Security. IMO: security is far better in linux than windows. Even when I have windows loaded up with AV and anti-spyware, and everything else: windows is still far more likely to get infected with malware. That has been my experience.
Other than that, no really good reason. I suppose linux could be cheaper. Or maybe you hate msft, or want to learn a UNIX like system.
But, frankly, for most desktop users, I don’t think Linux is worth it. Linux is good OS – better than windows, IMO. But, it just doesn’t work with all the HW or SW that windows will work with.
[i]Can Ubuntu completely replace Windows or Mac OS X?
Probably not. It doesn’t work perfectly out of the box. [i]
And Windows does?! An emphatic “no”.
Some impression from real life and “normal users”:
A friend of mine couldn’t access her MSN account with neither Gaim nor the official MSN client. She also complained that there were all sorts of stuff all over in Windows, wich had installed itself without her awareness.
Of course I burnt out an Ubuntu CD to see if she liked that better, and the reaction was somewhat surprising: “Why do I need this? It’s just the same as Windows”. This was with a standard Ubuntu CD with the Gnome desktop. She (happily) uses OOffice, Gaim and Firefox on Windows, and she couldn’t see why she should switch. This indicates that it’s not much harder using a Gnome desktop today than using Windows, and that the apps available are in fact very good and used by many on Windows too.
I also went to some family-reunion on saturday, and discussed computing briefly with some of them. I think it was like 4-5 people telling me they had trouble with spyware etc on their windows installations, with installations no older than 6 months.
Well, I don’t know, but if you’re statisfied with the apps on GNU/Linux/Ubuntu, I guess you can use it, and as far as I’ve experienced it’s a lot safer and in many ways more comfortable to use than Windows is now. Don’t know if it is up to par with OS X just yet, but it certainly has come some way in the last few years.
“…including high-profile geeks like Cory Doctorow”
He’s not so high profile that I have ever heard of him.
“high-profile geeks like Cory Doctorow”
Another somebody praising Ubuntu, I slowly got used to it, I don’t care. But that “high profile geek” line
) That blew my fuses 
)))
From the Article:
Both formats are proprietary, so they aren’t distributed with the all-freeware Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is available Freely, but it is not Freeware. Programs distributed under a freeware license are a completely different thing.
Other than that, i enjoyed the article.
My main gripe with the Linux world …
I still think repositories are not a satisfactory solution. For core operating system files and widely used dependencies and development files, that are actively maintained, i see the point. Thats a no brainer.
But …
They make me feel chained to the repo, not free to frolic on the interweb and download funky new apps at a whim and easily get them going on my beautiful little Drake. It’s like communism, everything is being provided by the state. And it makes my choice feel hollow.
LSB’s and Tango and Portland, all good. But binary packaging if that actually had standards that were adhered to, Linux would be an unstopable beast that the masses could love.
It may slow some areas of development but i think there would be a net benefit, a holy grail in fact.
The feature i am actually looking forward to the most in Edgy is dependency removal, so i dont have to worry about cruft between dist-upgrades.
Edited 2006-08-29 21:37
They make me feel chained to the repo, not free to frolic on the interweb and download funky new apps at a whim and easily get them going on my beautiful little Drake. It’s like communism, everything is being provided by the state. And it makes my choice feel hollow.
You have a choice, indeed. You can choose between a central repository where every package is checked to be what it really claims to be, has its own maintainer and it guarantees to integrate smoothly with the other packages.
Or you can download stuff freely and risk spyware, trojans, b0rking your entire machine or crippling it. And even if it’s a well behaved package, it has to set up its own update policy instead of relying on a central common one, it doesn’t follow any rules and spills its files wherever it pleases, when you uninstall it you have files left over. And so on.
A single central repository does not scale. Period. It works extremely well for the base system (I wish I had apt-get for Windows instead of Windows Update), but it cannot possibly include all software that is available. In any case it will always lag behind horribly, because the manpower driving it is limited.
In addition, a single central repository DOES NOT protect you from spyware, trojans and even borking your system (see the recent Ubuntu fsckup), because people that maintain it do not perform security audit of ALL software that is packaged and do not test it on ALL possible configurations. Well, maybe it does to an extent, but only for a limited set of base software. What ACTUALLY protects you from these things is simply the open source model. Mind you, for most users compiling stuff from a dev’s site is just as secure as downloading an exe, because again, most users don’t perform security audit.
That being said, nothing prevents 3rd parties from having their own repositories. But dealing with them is not very easy currently: you have (in Ubuntu) to go to System->Administration->Software Sources, find an option to add a 3rd party repo, enter a cryptic deb line there, update repository listings, use search to find the needed packages and then install them.
Therefore, at the end of the day, what we have in Linux is just another packaging format and practice – more convenient in SOME cases, but not inherently more secure.
EDIT: grammar
Edited 2006-08-30 11:15
You can choose between a central repository where every package is checked to be what it really claims to be, has its own maintainer and it guarantees to integrate smoothly with the other packages.
You know, not so long ago, some distro’s packaged wine so that the “wineserver” was an /etc/init.d system service (whereas it is in fact an executable started on-demand for each user ;-D ).
Developers of a package know best. Package maintainers are always second-rate citizens of the open-source world.
Unfortunately it is virtually impossible, for various reasons (http://plan99.net/autopackage/Linux_Problems), to ensure binary portability among different Linux distributions. You would have to statically link everything, which licences like the LGPL do not allow, or provide a relinkable object file, which no commercial software would like.
And when someone comes up with potential solutions to these problems (like LSB and autopackage), people spit on them.
They make me feel chained to the repo, not free to frolic on the interweb and download funky new apps at a whim and easily get them going on my beautiful little Drake. It’s like communism, everything is being provided by the state. And it makes my choice feel hollow.
But these repositories are so large that if you don’t like one package you can try another. If you can’t find it in that repository, you can link to another repository. If you can’t find it any repository, then you can download and package yourself. I don’t understand why you feel a repository is a bad thing – it’s all part of everyone sharing, just as the philosophy of open source dictates.
Yes, more bullshit.
I’m really starting to hate all the Ubuntu hype. There are other user friendly distros out there! I mean openSuse, Mandriva, Fedora. And once you become familiarized with them they become more powerful than Ubuntu. I tryed Ubuntu some times and I can’t really live with it. Only good thing is the package management.
Regarding the flawless installation, I’d like to know the reviewer opinion about windows… Seriously how crappier can it be? Drivers, programs, etc. Besides, Ubuntu can come factory pre-configured like windows.
Edited 2006-08-29 22:05
I’m all for freedom of choice, and you are most welcome to use Fedora Core, Mandriva, openSuSE, or whatever other distro appeals to you—whatever works best for you. That’s the point of distros.
But, in what way is it even remotely true that “once you become familiarized with [these other distros] they become more powerful than Ubuntu”?
Is Ubuntu lacking something in its precompiled kernel that the other distros aren’t? Is there some power user application that doesn’t run on Ubuntu that does on the other distros? Is there, in fact, anything at all that these distros can do that Ubuntu cannot—or, for that matter, that Ubuntu can do that they cannot?
No, of course not. Please, don’t be silly.
I can name one… Lin3gp
Works sweet on suse, will not work on ubuntu
:p
Fedora, Ubuntu, Suse, Mandriva, Slackware, insert your favorite Linux (or GNU/Linux, if you like) distro here — any one can be made to look and operate like any other. Installation is where the different distros distinguish themselves. Now, which is the easier install – Ubuntu or WinXP? My vote, based on my very recent experience, goes to Ubuntu.
I must say I’m a big ubuntu fan, I’ve been fiddling around with many distros in the past… mandrake, Suse, knoppix and so on… then I installed Ubuntu and it stayed there… I don’t think ubuntu is better than other distros, not from the tecnical point of view… but it has something other distros don’t, it has some kind of personality, it has an identity (apart from having a great community behind it!).
Ubuntu is one of the few distros that has his own, strong visual identity… more or less most big distros are blue or look like an XP spin-off. while it can be argued that ubuntu-brown is the sexiest colour around it stands apart… when you see a brown desktop you know it’s ubuntu! there’s lot of things that make using ubuntu feel like you are using something different from the rest… somethig special in a certain way…
I think that’s why people use it in spite of the lacking confi utilsg, and having to install a lot of things from the repo to get the whole system running as you want it… and all the drawbacks it may have.
Linux will NEVER BE COMPARABLE TO WINDOWS or OSX. Not because the underling OS is wrong, but the underlying philosophy behind the OS is INCOMPATABLE with ‘EASY TO USE’. It’s developed by open source geeks, not a large company, which has plenty of money, and the money to work on HID (Or the desire to).
In fact, I went to test if Ubuntu was ‘ready for simple users’ the other day. An elder relative of mine needed a computer, so I managed to get my hands on an old PC and decided to install Ubuntu on it.
Guess what? It was next to f*(king useless, especially the minute I tried to get any multimedia or ADSL (USB modem support), and in any case, I found myself having to break into a Xterm within MINUTES. In any case, it wasn’t a seamless experience, it still is, and still worked like, a clump of separate toolkits stuck together, running on another clump of toolkits, with bloat to boot.
At least with windows/OSX, its DE may be bloated, but you wouldn’t think so because of its general speed.
If you asked me a few years ago I would of said Linux can do everything, windows stuck yada yada, but a few years ago, I was a Linux Zealot posting on /. like all the other kiddies. These days, I actually have a life, so if an OS does the job, then it’s doing its job! With Linux, you soon find yourself having to hack something, or change something using inconsistent interfaces (GTK and the KDE issue will NEVER BE RESOLVED). As they say, Linux is only free if your time is worthless.
Linux is a hobbyist development OS, an a OS for LAMP or headless boxes. Other than that, it’s pretty much useless.
This isn’t a troll, it’s the hard truth, but I suspect I’ll probably get modded down for disagree with the pro-Linux groupthink.
Linux is a hobbyist development OS, an a OS for LAMP or headless boxes. Other than that, it’s pretty much useless.
So using it in a corporate setting for development would make it a professional development OS then?
Sounds like the old “no-one’s using Linux for mission-critical applications” rubbish one used to get in the late nineties. And then Oracle and IBM got behind it and pushed. Or the “Linux is for tweens who live in their parents’ basement” crowd. I’m sure Spielberg, Lucas, Peter Jackson and their parents and wives would be astonished to hear they still live in their parents’ basements.
Assuming houses in NZ have them. In England they often don’t.
NASA run it for sending men to the moon. How much more mission-critical can you get?
<holds up a box of Windows XP Professional>
“Would you trust this OS to keep your grandmother alive?”
Not a lot of basements around here, actually. Most New Zealand houses are modeled on English ones.
I’m sorry, but I have to point something out: NASA hasn’t sent a man to the moon since before Intel.
I’m sure NASA probably uses Linux somewhere, as do many others, but I just had to nitpick about what NASA is actually able to do right now; and sending someone to the moon is not one of those things. “If it was good enough to go to the moon, it’s was good enough for you.” –Every OS Sucks, 3 Dead Trolls in a Baggy
Who uses Linux?
NSA (US)
Google
Anyone want to add to the list? I’m only thinking companies which have a heavy investment, as in they write software for it or use it in critical parts of their infrastructure (which could include the desktops of their critical workers).
Of course, this list has nothing at all to do with the article. It’s one of those idiotic hype things where you say: “It’s right for these people, you want to be like them don’t you? You don’t want to be weird do you?!” And then the customer runs off to use what they perceive to be popular because some famous person or group is using it.
The article was a concise aid in figuring out if you, the individual, have an interest in using Linux, and Ubuntu specifically.
That was pedantic and completely missed my point, which may have had nothing to do with the article, but had everything to do with the post I was responding to.
I wasn’t even disagreeing with you. I was attempting to enlighten you about NASA, a little, while backing up your statements.
Calm down.
Excuse me, how about getting a clue what a rendering farm is; a rendering farm is a collection of computers networked together to number crunch.
The work is done on a Mac or Windows PC, the information is spat into the rendering farm, the farm crunches through the stuff, and sputs out the final product; its hardly ‘desktop oriented’ stuff considering all the desktop work has been done on a Mac or Windows PC.
Hell, you could chuck *ANYTHING* for the OS of the rendering farm, and it wouldn’t make a difference to the overall output.
This isn’t a troll
Sure as hell sounds like one.
>>>This isn’t a troll, it’s the hard truth, but I suspect I’ll probably get modded down for disagree with the pro-Linux groupthink.<<<
Where have you been? This is a Win and Mac whore site. There hasn’t been any pro-Linux anything in quite some time.
What are you talking about? Half the articles are about Linux. I think Linux is a good OS, but you cannot deny that there is a lot of pro-linux groupthink going on.
Edited 2006-08-30 01:39
[…]you cannot deny that there is a lot of pro-linux groupthink going on.
Have you thought that maybe it’s because it’s worth it? For commercial OS’s you can presume there’s a marketing campaign behind the OS, but behind Linux at large is just a whole bunch of ordinary people. If a lot of ordinary people swear by Linux and haven’t gotten over it after all these years, wouldn’t you at least give it the benefit of the doubt?
Funny how the “pro-linux groupthink” whiners never complain about “pro-Windows groupthink”.
I think you’re reading the comments too much and ignoring the actual article links. There is tons of pro-linux stuff on here.
I’m not going to mod you down, although I do think that your post qualifies as a troll. But I’d rather respond.
When my parents finally upgraded their computer a year ago (previously running Windows 95), I installed Ubuntu for them, because they preferred not to have to pay for Windows and were concerned about viruses and malware. I ran into several problems doing this, which I’d like to relate since they are directly relevant to your post:
Firstly, I had the /devil/ of a job getting their dialup modem going. It is an Intel chipset 536, if memory serves. However, with the aid of the excellent Ubuntu Forums and Wiki, I did finally get it up and running, and wrote a script which would do it automatically in the future. I’d like to make two observations about this experience, first off:
1. On Windows, the modem would have had drivers that could be installed from CD. However, on Windows I have encountered problems getting drivers working, just as I have on Linux. Further, if I lost the driver CD, getting hold of the drivers again would have been more difficult than it would have been on Linux, because they are proprietary.
2. On Windows, if I had had problems loading the drivers, then that was it. There was nothing I could do to get them to load if they would not load using either their own installer, or Windows’ own driver installation interface. On Linux, I had problems with the installer that someone else had created—so I took it apart and made my own.
I should observe that, in the event of problems with a driver, my parents could not solve said problem regardless of whether they were on Windows or Linux.
Secondly, once I got the modem working, I also found that they had a bunch of old images which they had scanned which were stored in a format which could not be read by any Linux application I could find (PSF files created by some nasty program that came with their scanner). However, I also couldn’t find any Windows applications (that I didn’t have to pay for) that would read them either. Fortunately, there is an open source utility freely available online which can convert PSF files into other formats, for which no Windows equivalent seems to exist. So, while I had anticipated having to manually convert all the PSF files to JPEGs in Windows, I was able to write a script in Linux to batch convert them all using a single command.
Thirdly, I then discovered that their old Outlook Express mailbox and address book were stored in a format which could not be read by anything currently available. Outlook Express on Windows 2000 and XP (the only two versions of Windows I had available) could not read them; nor could Outlook 2000, XP, or 2003. This was pretty surprising to me, but I asked a friend with Windows 98 to try it—and even he could not read them! After much hunting for programs that would do the job, I eventually gave up on the mailbox since it wasn’t worth the time, and manually extracted the email addresses from the address book by catting it in Linux (I couldn’t get any program except cat to read the blasted thing). I then manually entered the addresses into a new address book in Evolution which I know will be importable into other mail apps in the future—and, even if not, is still human-readable.
Some comments on this:
1. The fact that I had to use Linux in the end to manually recreate the address book is somewhat ironic. Possibly I could have got it done on Windows with further research, of course; but it tickles me nonetheless.
2. The fact that no program I could find would read the old OE mailbox format is a fairly typical situation for proprietary formats. If my parents had been running Linux on their old machine, no such problem would have existed, and they would not have lost their old data. They should not have to upgrade whenever Microsoft decides in order to retain their emails between computers!
3. Again, without my help they would have been completely stuck. Migrating between Windows, or between Linux, would have been no different here. For a “simple user”, Linux was actually the better option in terms of data retension.
Finally, having resolved these problems, I got Ubuntu 5.10 installed and the PC was up and running. I tested everything to be sure it worked, and it did. Some comments here too: I didn’t have to install any other drivers. Everything else just worked. In Windows, I would have had to installed mainboard drivers, graphics card drivers, sound drivers, and possibly others. Ubuntu did all this for me. In this sense, Ubuntu was far /more/ seamless than Windows would have been, and Windows would have been “f*(king useless” by comparison.
I then installed the PC for my parents and gave them some basic training on it. They liked the brown color scheme and commented on how much better than Windows it looked. Now, admittedly they were primarily comparing it to Windows 95 on their old machine—but my dad uses XP at his work, and my mother uses 2k. My dad /hates/ Windows XP’s interface, and my mother /hates/ Windows 2000 having used Linux for a while because of how unreliable and inconsistent it is in comparison.
My sister has recently asked me to help her with getting a new computer. She uses my parents’ computer quite often, and she has explicitly asked me to install Ubuntu for her, because of how much better she finds it than Windows. When she goes to her friends’ houses and they have Windows running, everything has a different interface! MSN has a different gui to IE. IE has a different gui to OE. OE has a different gui to Outlook. Outlook has a different gui to Word. Their DVD players have ugly, obviously-image-based guis with no consistency with the rest of the OS, or even with each other. In fact, the only program that looks like it is actually part of Windows is the file browser, Explorer. And you /pay/ for these programs. By comparison, Ubuntu has programs which all, more or less, conform with the Gnome HIG; they all look and act the same. And, subjectively speaking at least, they all look /a lot/ better than their Windows counterparts. Like me, my sister just doesn’t understand why anyone would pay to use the mess that is Windows when Ubuntu is available for free.
Further, my parents no longer worry about viruses or spyware. Before I upgraded their machine, I was regularly over at their place to fix problems with Windows. I’m not longer doing maintenance on their computer every week (I haven’t touched it in months). My father is one of the most computer-illiterate people I know (and I work on a helpdesk, so I know a few). He has to learn everything by rote, because computers just don’t make sense to him. And he finds Ubuntu just as easy to use as Windows; if not easier.
My point in this rather long post is that, if you run into problems on EITHER Windows OR Linux, and you don’t know what you’re doing, you need help. The experience rapidly becomes “not seamless”—if indeed the Windows experience can ever be considered seamless with such a mishmash of inconsistent user interfaces, combined with the constant problem of malware and viruses. My parents don’t use their computer to play around on. They have lives. They use their computer as a tool. They have found that Linux is highly worthwhile for this purpose—it has enabled them to spend less time working and more time doing what they want.
In other words, my own experience completely contradicts yours.
Folks, bear with me, another weird and wonderful analogy coming on…:)
I think it’s rather like this. I grew up learning a mother tongue, English. Like any mother tongue, you learn it organically for the most part – you don’t learn it by being a grammarian at the age of 2.
later on, you may get the chance to learn another language. You may have an exceptionally good experience with the second language, and you will be hungry to learn more, and will go easy on yourself while you are still making mistakes because you like the second language and the culture that goes with it. You may not be a grammarian or a linguist but you give it your best shot.
Other people are linguists, they are natural linguists, you show them an indirect dative, and they go, yup, got that, what’s next?
Not all languages are equal, some languages might be a lot more logical or internally consistent than English from a certain perspective. But English is my mother tongue, and there’s a certain facility I have with it, even though I couldn’t parse a sentence if asked on the spot.
You were able to solve some of these problems since you are obviously a computer grammarian. You can unpick the syntax and put the meaning back together again. Good for you.
But others are necessarily or perforce ordinary windows speakers. They get by because that’s what they learned first. They may even speak this language incorrectly but they are understood. When they come to Linux, they try to apply their limited explicit understanding of their own language. Some get it immediately, some don’t, some enjoy the experience, some hate it, and go back to Windows-speak, because they can still use it to order coffee, converse with friends, and generally be understood by other speakers of the same language.
The moral? If you are a teacher of a foreign, minority language, you will get far by giving beginners a good and positive experience of your language. You start with say, High German, not Swabian. You do not have to turn your own language into English, it will retain its own nature.
But you will get nowhere fast if you start by raising your voice at the beginner in your own language to state they are inconsiderate, lazy and ignorant for not realizing the obviously superior aspects of the language to be learnt.
Linux is a minority language with a thousand dialects (distros).
What’s the best way to help others be grammarians in Linux, do you think?
PS. I have a smattering of Vector, Yoper and have recently started to learn Ubuntu (again). I probably wouldn’t go hungry in PCBSD.
Edited 2006-08-30 06:49
The only beginners that annoy us are the “This SUCKS! Why can’t it be like Windows?!” or the “I’m going back to Windows! Linux will NEVER be ready for the desktop” hissy-fit types, especially when they bring basements into it. “Never” is a silly word to use when you’re talking about Linux (or UNIX in general, which according to the UNIX Haters’ Handbook will “never” have logical volume support, etc).
Even Steven Vaughan-Nichols thinks “Gentoo is only for playing around with; I don’t know anyone who actually uses it for real work.” Well, he obviously hasn’t read much at the Gentoo Forums site, then, has he?
Hmm – I suggest you take up teaching – winning over the “this SUCKS” students is probably par for the course. No-one sitting in a history class who says this is going to be won over by re-writing history to suit them but they may very well be won over by a decent teacher with a decent teaching method.
Admittedly there are those who just do not want to learn and want to prevent others from learning – I guess in all honesty I would ask them to leave if they couldn’t behave civilly, at the very least.
But no teacher is better than the way he can equally civilly (and rationally) deal with next “dumb question”. Why is French history different from German history is probably best countered, not by pointing to just Bismarck, but also by explaining the French Revolution. It sounds like a jackass question, but there’s not a bad point in it. Countering by saying “it just is you dumb….” gets nowhere, and goes nowhere.
To revert to my original open question, Linux on the *desktop* is I suggest probably only Esperanto right now, Windows is English, OSX, Spanish, OS2 and BeOS Latin and Greek respectively, etc. Esperanto is a great idea (well, it was until various other people decided that they wanted their own universal language, and created a set of new ones…). It has everything a language could need, except speakers in numbers and effective and numerous translators. The question is still valid when put to Linux advocates (and remember, I personally would love to speak Linux fluently), why would anyone speaking English need to learn Esperanto?!!
The question is still valid when put to Linux advocates (and remember, I personally would love to speak Linux fluently), why would anyone speaking English need to learn Esperanto?!!
The silly truth is they don’t. Somehow all those “English” speakers have convinced themselves they need to learn “Esperanto”, just because they have heard “Esperanto” speakers talking in “English” how happy they are when speaking “Esperanto”.
Since speaking “English” seems to be a miserable undertaking, “Esperanto” is luring them in, but then they realise they really have to relearn from scratch before it will ever pay off. Then they get mad at people speaking “Esperanto”, because they are not willing to put in the elbow grease to learn “Esperanto”, but they feel they are entitled to the happiness that speaking “Esperanto” seems to bring.
“English” speakers can bitch all they want, I learned “Esperanto” the only way it is possible, with genuine effort and not quiting when the going got tough. If they want to experience “Esperanto” too, they will have to learn. Bastardizing “Esperanto” into some form of “Engleranto” and pretending it is still “Esperanto” will simply not happen.
For the mentally exhausted; Esperanto needs to be read as GNU/Linux and English as Windows.
Touché ;-)!
The only beginners that annoy us are the “This SUCKS! Why can’t it be like Windows?!” or the “I’m going back to Windows! Linux will NEVER be ready for the desktop” hissy-fit types, especially when they bring basements into it. “Never” is a silly word to use when you’re talking about Linux (or UNIX in general, which according to the UNIX Haters’ Handbook will “never” have logical volume support, etc).
Do you think FireFox, Thunderbird, Open Office, etc will be as popular as now if there is no Windows version of them?
Even Steven Vaughan-Nichols thinks “Gentoo is only for playing around with; I don’t know anyone who actually uses it for real work.” Well, he obviously hasn’t read much at the Gentoo Forums site, then, has he?
I agree with him. In real work *BSD or Solaris are commonly used.
Do you think FireFox, Thunderbird, Open Office, etc will be as popular as now if there is no Windows version of them?
Of course not; what does that have to do with it?
I agree with him. In real work *BSD or Solaris are commonly used.
Arf, arf.
For your reading enjoyment:
http://funroll-loops.org/
:-0
Heh.;-)
Yeah, I knew you’d like it.
The calendar cover at the bottom of the page ( http://funroll-loops.org/gentoo.jpg ) makes great wallpaper!
Always a pleasure, twenex!
Edited 2006-08-30 16:27
You should have ten points as far as I’m concerned. Well done and happy Ubuntuing.
Another war story and a gripe about Linux if I may. I was once playing around with Partition Magic and Boot Magic. I had managed to make the Windows XP partition hidden (and forget what I had done) so (you can guess what’s coming) I spent AGES trying to fix it, rebooting and rebooting over and over.
I fixed it, of course. With Knoppix, of course.
Now, the gripe. I just upgraded Firefox on this Linux box. It’s come up in German (um Gottes willen!) and it STILL hasn’t fixed the problem I’m having with this site. Grr.
If you get modded down for anything it’ll be:
Profanity.
An obviously rushed post.
Insulting Linux users by implying they’re all “kiddies.”
Insulting Linux users by implying they have no life.
I know this is an incredible idea, but, really, no one cares about inconsistent interfaces but geeks. Some people get annoyed about ok/cancel being in the wrong order, but it’s minor because you’re supposed to virtually never see them anyway (outside of a save dialog).
Different look? Have you ever used a Mac? Do you see many Macheads who don’t live on forums like this complaining? No. If you ask them they’ll probably say “it’s kind of refreshing.”
Windows users? Have you noticed that Microsoft’s future plans are to encourage every application to pursue its own theming? Yes, that’s correct. They even wrote a tool to make it easy, and much more powerful: It used to be called Sparkle, now it has some marketing name.
As far as professional HID you may want to notice that 11 years after Win95 Microsoft still thinks initial ease of use is more important than later usefulness: The “start button” still says “start.” Do you need that after using it once? No, you don’t.
But they’ve kept it. And it wastes pixels (a definite bad thing to do). And when I say waste, I mean, we all know where it is, so why use precious screen space on that when I could see more of each task on the taskbar?
That’s “professional” HID for you: Slow to change, and unecessarily geared toward the beginner and not the professional user.
Or, here’s another one, why is the recycle bin still on the desktop?
Because it’s easy to find in the clutter? Nope.
Because it’s easy to drag things to it? Nope, it’s often covered by what you need to drag from.
Because no one has figured out another place? Nope, Mac puts it on the dock, KDE on the panel, and so does Gnome.
Because that’s where it’s been for 11 years? Bingo.
I’m not sure who decided that learning to use a computer was anathema, and giving up useability for intuitiveness was a good design pattern but I am sure he was wrong. Anybody else prefer an environment they can be more productive in after learning it verse one that they can learn quickly but be forever slowed by?
And PS- People aren’t mad about Windows DE because it’s bloated, we’re upset because it’s missing so many features.
I agree, this is propaganda…
Linux is a cult and if you aren’t a follower then we will offer you up as a sacrifice to microsoft because we don;t want you unless the ideals/philosophy is important to you.
…but why are we so sure that Windows got it right and it’s what Ubuntu should be compared to in terms of usability?
I really don’t see how having to use the terminal is such a big issue. I don’t see why the fact that Windows and, until recently, Apple have got their users blindfolded and with tied hands about the way they can interact with their computer should force us to judge Linux like:
“if you have to use the command line then it is bad”.
I’m probably old computer-wise, but I’ve always believed that computers are *not* for everyone, a minimum of know-how is necessary and the command line is an exceptional (and often, the best) tool for managing your system. I will never believe that the dumb world of double-clicks has given the average user any more joy. If that was true, there wouldn’t be so many people who manage to mess up their Windows installation without a clue on what to do, and fixing those problems would be easier than just going through menus, tabs and radio buttons only to find that the option you’re looking for is nowhere to be found.
The use of an environment where the command line is a normal and advanced tool can make the users aware of what they’re doing even when they’re only double clicking their way around. When something they try to do doesn’t work then, they at least have an idea of what is not working.
I am very happy with Linux, but I’m not a Windows hater or anything else (I’d still recommend it to a lot of users), but even for everyday use, have you ever tried using Explorer to produce, say, a list of the .xls files you own to send it to a colleague? Oh wait, using only icons they don’t even know the extension is .xls! In my opinion, learning to use the command line is absolutely necessary, both in Windows and Linux. In this, I feel Ubuntu is a LOT more powerful than Windows.
here is a test,
in XP, click your way down to any folder in the Temporary Internet Files,
save a copy of that file onto the desktop.
try and delete that file of the desktop.
The full path will be too long for Windows to handle, you will need to go to the command line and delete it from there.
Hint, to get to Documents and Settings, type
cd c:”Documants and Settings” include the “”