Talk about ubuntu.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.
You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.
The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.
Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.
“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.
Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.
Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.
Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.
You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.
Not all heroes wear capes.
To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.
A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.
These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.
Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.
We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.
Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.
There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.
Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!
The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.
If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.
You cannot love your country only when you win.
Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.
They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.
Republicans do not pay their debts.
ninerdave
The linux distro?
It’s nice. Easy to use and install, easy to maintain, well supported and has a great community. If you are looking for a desktop distro it’s probably the one to use.
I don’t personally use it because I don’t like apt, and don’t need 99% of what it installs. I mainly use linux to run MythTV and Gentoo fits the bill better.
kommrade reproductive vigor
What if I duntwuntu?
Hendrix’s version of Like a Rolling Stone is superior to the original.
Comrade Stuck
Didn’t mean to prompt a new thread for Unbuntu. :)
It’s like stepping into a parallel universe so far, so I don’t really know that much about it. But if anybody wants to try it, you can install it and keep windows with the Wubi installer and just uninstal it if you don’t like it. But I’m already hooked completely after only a few hours. You have to download about 700 megs for the OS, it took me about 1.5 hours with a 1.5 dsl.
So far the pros
Firefox works much better and faster than on windows, the pages snap load instead of piecemeal. It seems like FF was made for ubuntu.
No need for antivirus, anti spyware, utilities, (ie defrag etc). this is why I switched.
And about the best thing is the clear and more readable fonts compared to Windows. But as yet, has done nothing to improve my grammar and spelling. Hee!
Cons
There’s going to be things I used before that no longer apply, like netflix and likely a bunch more video and audio sites and other things. But there are, what seems like a lot of alternatives to explore instead.
Brick Oven Bill
Note the mindset. An ‘open thread’ is announced. And then, a directive is given on what to talk about. I don’t know you Tim, but I bet you lean left.
I have progressive in-laws like this. They are always telling me what to eat. This Christmas it was cold stuffed mushrooms with slimy crowns. That and one of those shrimp rings with shrimp that was two days too old. They get offended when you say no thank you.
This behavior is very rare in conservative circles.
Once-Ler
Funny, that’s one of my main complaints about it. Fonts never seem to look as good as they do in Windows. My other problem is that flash for linux runs really slow, so YouTube videos sometimes don’t work as well.
Still, I like it, and I use it. Really, the only time I boot Windows anymore is when I want to watch The Office on Netflix. Well, I use Windows at work too. I don’t get a choice there.
Tim F.
Brick guy, I would explain light sarcasm but the three syllable words would crash your primitive syntax processor.
Brick Oven Bill
OK, you may have me there Tim. I have to deal politely with two ACLU card carriers, and may have become reactionary.
Zuzu's Petals
@Tim F.:
I’ve noticed linear thinking to be quite common in wingnut circles.
Brick Oven Bill
But I do note that everybody is talking about computers.
Reverend Dennis
Just went through my annual "Load a popular Linux distro to see how they’re progressing" ritual. This year I chose Mandriva. I started this years ago with one of the early Slackware distros, back when you had to compile the kernel and configure XWindows if you wanted a GUI.
Linux no longer deserves its Geeks Only reputation. Mandriva installed seamlessly, detected everything and brought up a desktop with no intervention needed. I had Win2K installed on my test machine and Mandriva installed itself into its own partition and asked if I wanted to allow dual booting. That worked well too. I was able to browse the NTFS (Windows) partition and I was able to bring over some sample MP3’s from it and play them on the included Amarok media player. All very nice. The distro was free and it can be run from a CD if you wish to try it out before installing.
Depending on your needs, Linux may be fine for you. If you’re not a gamer, or you don’t heavily use MS Office or Photoshop at all (GIMP users: GIMP is a very capable application. It’s still not Photoshop) you’ll probably be okay. Open Office works well within Open Office – as long as you don’t work with Excel spreadsheets. Printing can also be a problem: if your printer isn’t in the sweet spot and Mandriva doesn’t pick it up on install then you’ll have to get under the hood and configure CUPS. The information is out there and Mandriva, among others, has a very helpful user community but, it can be daunting if you’re accustomed to Plug and Play.
Reverend Dennis
Addendum:
As distributed, I couldn’t find an app in Mandriva that would allow me to load MP3’s on my MP3 player. I Googled to see if there was a package I could install that would allow me to do so but I came up empty. Probably something to do with the fact that most MP3 players use MS’s MTP (Media Transfer Protocol). There’s probably an app that will enable you to load/unload your MP3 player with Linux, this was more just a test drive.
azlib
I have been running Ubuntu for about 2 years now. There are still a few glitches, but it does work well. I run the accelerated graphics (nvidia) with all the 3D eye candy. Works well.
The Gnome desktop does like memory. I have 4 Gb on my notebook. But memory is cheap these days. I do still run WIndows XP under VMware Workstation for the few Windows apps I still use (Quickbooks).
ninerdave
@Comrade Stuck:
Install the wine package. It’s an implementation of the Win32 API on Linux. I know it ran World of Warcraft like a champ so it’ll probably run some of your missing applications.
ninerdave
@Brick Oven Bill:
So is rational thinking.
demimondian
@ninerdave:
So is honesty.
Imputing one’s own failings onto others, however, is frequent.
Face
Watching back-to-back shows on PBS that went from The Quest For Absolute Zero to some show on the Nazi genocide of Jews. Gunna have some real fucked up dreams tonite. Thanks, Nova.
mgordon
I just installed ubuntu on my laptop last week to see what linux was all about. Works great so far but for some reason Google Earth wont work.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
You want really fucked up dreams? Try this.
Zuzu's Petals
@demimondian:
After checking out the guy’s website, I’ve come to the conclusion he may be a really elaborate spoof. Possibly with way too much time on his hands.
Comrade Stuck
@ninerdave:
Thanks ND. Just did install Wine. It should solve some problems when I figure out how to configure and work it. starting tomorrow.
Comrade Kevin
I’m getting ready to load Ubuntu on an old Powerbook G4 I have.
Cain
I just switched to Foresight LInux which along with SuSE got best distro of the year by Ars Technica. It’s a different kind of package manager and so far I like it. It’s a big change, as I’ve not switched out from a Debian style distro in nearly 10 years. I still have an Ubuntu box with a default install. Which just got destroyed becuase I have fucking TWO windows install both legal going through constant reboots because something got corrupted.
i was playing some game and then the whole thing crashed and I couldn’t get back in. The other one was hosed for awhile and then I tried to fix it today to help with the other computer and it the damn thing corrupted itself and deleted the linux partition. Yay! I’m going to bed and masturbate, that’s all that’s left. I’ll probably break my dick.
cain
A Really Elaborate Spoof
I have been mocked here for talking about the Dark of the Moon period preceding the 20th.
The Dark of the Moon is January 6th to January 8th. What we are seeing may very well be prologue.
I have celebrated with Jews in Israel and a significant percentage of them are a very tough people. The blonde toting a M4A1 at the bar. Keep your gas tanks on the full side my Balloon Juice friends. The Strait of Hormuz is only 22 miles wide and there are plenty of navigation hazards as it is.
I judge Ahmedinejad to be a true believer. He drives an old station wagon. Glittering prizes and endless compromises are not that big of a thing to his self-identity. I respect that aspect of our ideological adversary.
I sit in my relatively safe Gentile home tonight with a certain degree of guilt.
ninerdave
@Cain:
Sweet dreams!
J Bean
I haven’t tried Ubuntu, the last distro I tried was Debian and it was a painless install. They’ve all become much, much easier to install than they once were (my first one took me days even though I used to wear a Unix system administrator hat at times). I always partition the disc and leave Windows available since Wine doesn’t always give you a tolerable result. Linux is easier to use than Windoze, but then again I loves me my vi ….
MarkusB
I like Ubuntu lots; I’ve been using a sub-distro called Ubuntu Studio all year and then some. (I mostly want it for Ardour, for multi-track recording.) I started with Slackware, although probably not as early as Reverend Dennis (I didn’t have to recompile the kernel to run X).
I still love Slackware and I learned a lot from it, but Ubuntu has spoiled me by making life comparatively easier.
I’ve dabbled with Linux for a few years and multi-booted between it and MS-Windows for a long time. In a few short days I’ll be able to mark off my first full calender year of being Windows-free (at home; I still use XP at work).
I miss some things; I’d love to be a Photoshop maven or make kewl Flash cartoons, but as it is I can record music, edit video, watch Youtube, and blog (not that I blog much), so I’m happy. And, while not Photoshop, the GIMP is very cool and a lot of fun.
Ya do have to be careful about the hardware you choose.
srv
I think John’s links to Daniel Larison have resulted in too much spanking on his religious stuff. He hasn’t posted in two weeks.
Maybe an exorcism is in order.
ninerdave
@MarkusB:
How is Ardour? I’ve been very curious about it. I’m a serious Pro Tools user and am curious how it stacks against Pro Tools. Is it like Photoshop vs. GIMP?
I know they have Mac builds of it, and I’ve dinked with them, but I’ve never used it for a serious production (and frankly you’ll pry my HD system away from my cold dead hands) but I think the idea of an open source DAW is awesome.
Comrade Kevin
Well, that didn’t work, the PowerPC live CD freaks out on my old Powerbook, oh well.
ninerdave
@Comrade Kevin:
What happens?
robertdsc
I love my MacOS X Tiger (on the eMac) and Panther (on the PowerBook) just fine.
Both machines are dialed in as tight as can be.
MarkusB
How is Ardour? I’ve been very curious about it. I’m a serious Pro Tools user and am curious how it stacks against Pro Tools. Is it like Photoshop vs. GIMP?
I’ve been in the same room as Pro Tools, but never used it. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that your PS vs. GIMP comparison is probably pretty apt. The gap might even be a bit wider (Ardour seems more inclined to crash than GIMP, for example).
I use Ardour to make demos and I’m pretty happy with it, but I think it would take balls of steel to use it for serious production. And you basically want to build a system around it; I’m using a budget motherboard, and it’s not quite cutting the mustard. I hope to put a more robust system together next year.
I’m a musician and songwriter, but I don’t have much in the way of production cred, so my input is probably not hugely useful.
Still, like you, I love the idea of an open-source DAW. I tried for years to cobble *anything* together that I could just make decent demos with in Linux. What I’ve had this year has been a dream compared to the full-on fail I’ve known before. I think, and hope, the future looks bright with Ardour and various other open-source things.
MarkusB
@ninerdave: I forgot about clicking the arrow. Please to see my non-reply reply above.
MarkusB
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse:
Yipes. Between you and cain, I might just not go to sleep.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Cain:
The irony! The funniest post I ever read, on the most boring fucking thread in the history of …. anything with threads. Like, blogs, or the internet, or garments. Or the universe.
Comrade Kevin
@ninerdave:
Strangely, I re-started the live CD, and it is actually working now. Who knows what was wrong before.
What is really pissing me off is that my Time Machine backup on my MBP got corrupted, and now I have to start it over again.
MarkusB
@Cain:
Maybe you need Foreskin Linux ;-)
ninerdave
@MarkusB:
Cool, good to know. I have a good friend coming in to record soon, I might see if I can talk him in to trying it for fun.
ninerdave
@Comrade Kevin:
Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux :)
I run Leopard, but I don’t use Time Machine. I thought the whole point of it was that it used multiple backups. Is it just the most recent snapshot that hosed? Or are all of them hosed?
MarkusB
@ninerdave:
That would be good if you do. I suspect I would find your comparison of Ardour and Pro Tools interesting.
Be sure to grab the LADSPA plugins. Beware, because many (most?) of them are full of suck, but you’ll need and want the useful ones. Unfortunately, the only way to find out what’s what seems to be through trial and error.
…Which, if you’re doing this on a Mac, I would presume they exist for that platform, but I’m not 100% sure. Also, I’m not sure if the OS X version is neck-and-neck with the Linux one, but having a quick look at the Ardour page it seems they’re coming along with it.
The Moar You Know
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: I am now happily nuking my ex-girlfriend’s house, thank you.
Pro Tools is like a nice car. Ardour is like a Hot Wheels version of the same car.
I’m not holding my breath for an even halfway-usable open-source DAW anytime soon.
Oh, and Ubuntu is nice. I also have Xandros on my eeePC and that is a fantastic little system for light-duty traveling.
ninerdave
@MarkusB:
I see you can compile your own VST support. I might try that too.
@The Moar You Know:
Actually I always view the Mac and Pro Tools as in the same vein, you get a closed system custom tailored where the hardware and software are designed to work with each other.
On the other hand you have the various native systems (the PCs) where you can pick and choose your hardware and software. It’s more flexible, cheaper, but takes effort (and is sometimes impossible) to get them stable.
fenris
Ubuntu’s ok.. easy to use, and so on, and has a number of good applications pre- installed. But has quirks with the interface that will force you to know more about ubuntu- linux than any human being should, if you want to change something downwards in the system (and have it actually work the way you want it to).
But it’s pretty neat.. as far as pre- configured package- based distros can be neat.. And with the upcoming ARMubuntu builds, along with ARM- based notebooks and "MID"s – ubuntu is probably going to help making a real dent when it comes to choosing development environments for PC programs, and with multiplatform releases.
Since the new MIDs will, along with other alternatives to x86, force programs to be developed differently compared to before – which will only be positive for linux, and other OSes that are not invested in promoting one architecture to the exclusion of everything else.
Frank
Reverend Dennis, you don’t need a special app for your mp3 player, as long as it’s a generic and not behind a wall like iPod. It should mount as another hard drive. Run dmesg as root and you should be able to find it.
It will probably look like a SCSI drive.
Larger Linux observation: I’m a long time Slackware user; I’ve got three Slackware boxes, including my laptop and my webserver. It’s rock solid and never breaks.
If I were to set up a Linux box for a newbie, I’d probably go with CentOS. I don’t like the way Ubuntu hides the root user (that’s admin for you Windows folks). I found Mandriva exceptionally clunky. Haven’t played with Debian yet or Gentoo yet.
That reminds me, time to check what podcasts podracer downloaded last night and throw them onto the player for today’s listening pleasure.
magisterludi
Back in the day, when Pro Tools was brand new, the cased racks of the unit took up the back of our Trooper (too cheap for cartage).
I think the whole rig cost about 30,000-40,000 dollars. It’s too painful to think about.
Of course, that was when major studios were still in vogue and budgets were huge. And cocaine was ubiquitous.
Sigh.
Reverend Dennis
@Frank:
Thanks for the tip. I haven’t lived full-time in a UNIX environment for years and to describe me as "rusty" would be charitable.
rachel
@MarkusB: I wonder if this distro would work OK for you.
T. Scheisskopf
I am a Mandriva person myself. I just installed, with great trepidation, 2009 x86_64 on a dual boot machine I built for a friend to give to his wife for Happy Birthday to The Baby Jesus. AMD Athlon x2 6000+, MSI K9n2 Platinum MB, 750a chipset. Nvidia 9600 video card, 500GB Samsung hard drive(they are rocks), Samsung DVD, CoolerMaster Centuriaon case(the cheapest kewl case out there), Freezer 64 fan/heatsink w/Artic Silver.
I was a little trepidatious about Mandriva with a newer Nvidia chipset but no worries. Everything just…worked. Peripherals? Just…worked. After the updates were applied, it’s a good, functional, stable system and the Mandriva server kernel which installs, automagically, on multi-core machines, really does a fine job of smoothly and quickly scheduling tasks between cores. I run it here on my Q6600 and it is fast as hell. Now, if they could just get Pulseaudio to housebreak itself. When it wants to play nice, Pulseaudio is some of the nicest, clearest, most exact audio I have ever heard on any computer.
I wish Windows was as easy to install.
Oh, lappy users: The Broadcom WiFi chipset can give you fits. Broadcom is a bunch of buttheads when it comes to Linux support.
demimondian
@Zuzu’s Petals: It’s entirely possible, and not entirely unlikely. Who knows? Either way, I’m treating it as real for the time being: if it is real, then I can make the world a better place by exposing it. If not, then I can make myself happy by making it happy by suckering someone in.
demimondian
@T. Scheisskopf:
Does anybody else notice a bit of a…cognitive clash…here?
Having, in fact, installed the open Broadcom drivers on the laptop I’m typing this from, there is nothing which demonstrates the true immaturity of Linux as a platform better than its wretchedly poor wireless support. At this point, it is actually worse than the support provided by Win3.1 for TCP/IP networking.
Really, folks, here’s a hint. The user who "only just needs to browse the web and maybe edit a few documents" is a myth. Most users need to *almost exclusively* browse the web, and maybe edit a few documents. Then, very rarely, they’ll need to create a presentation for a class, or use a printer attached to a Linux box, or connect to a wireless network — or they’ll need to cut and paste from a browser window to a text field in another browser window — and suddenly, everything will fall over, as all the wrapping paper comes off, and Linux is revealed as every bit as hostile as it ever was.
What geeks don’t understand is that a unified operating environment is a great deal more than just a workable rip-off shell like Gnome. It involves integration at all levels, which, in turn requires making design decisions deep in the system (like designing a working clipboard), and enforcing those design decisions all the way up. (See, "Emacs, cutting and pasting in", for an example of how this fails.)
Kirk
I kicked my daughter’s box over to linux last week. It’s an older box, and if I had some free cash laying about I’d just purchase a new one. The XP disks turned out to be cracked – a comedy of errors that I’ll not go into. So, I tried to install ubuntu. Then I tried fedora. Both had problems with a couple of oddities about the Dell GX60. So, back to my tried and true, Gentoo. If I’m having to tweak to make it work anyway, I’m going whole hog.
Works fine, now.
I still have annoyances. Specifically the things that are designed to work with Windows that require a bit of fuss to make work in Linux. Specific example: my daughter thinks her iRiver E10 is one of the best mp3 players she’s used. It as a designated playloader that’s written for windows. I’ve had to pull a few odd drivers and such to make it work in Wine. If I weren’t familiar with the program and the work, we’d have been hunting a Windows disk and retrograding.
2liberal
@Kirk
If you check with MS Tech support they may be able to supply replacement disks since your medium is damaged. I used to work for them (pre-2000) and they used to replace damaged media.
MarkusB
@rachel:
The problem with that one is that it doesn’t seem to have been updated very recently. Thank you for the pointer, though.
mapaghimagsik
Ubuntu is nice, though I haven’t seen anything in the open or closed source come close to Painter X or even ArtRage.
Its kinda hard to get the Watcom Tablet to work with any Linux, too. The Watcom drivers for Windows are just more more stable and seem to be much more mature.
At the same time, I think GIMP works great.
fenris
demimondian:
..um…no. The idea is to provide a platform, and then let the most convenient and easily extendable solution survive.
As opposed to rewarding the ones making exclusive systems that need users to ignore alternatives, and learn to trawl positively hostile user- manuals to figure out the simplest and most common tasks possible.
Evidently, this does not always work. Specially when many distros make no sense whatsoever unless you actually know how it’s put together from the bottom up – even though the gui locks you out of system- access, and so on.
What I’m saying is – the next distro you should download and try would be Sabayon(Gentoo – source- based).
demimondian
@fenris: Um, yes.
Listen, you come talk to me when any Linux distro has a working browser from which I can cut and paste from one tab to another. (And don’t plan on snowing me, snookums. I know this area pretty well.) Free software is no more a solution to real-world problems than free markets are.
Update: and by "working cut and paste", I mean cut text from one tab and paste it into an edit field in another, *always*. I’m not even going to ask for rich formatting to work.
Once-Ler
@demimondian
Good grief, what distro are you using?
My experience here isn’t extensive, but I have one wireless card that is supported by Ubuntu, and another that works fine using the Windows drivers with ndiswrapper. OK, I shouldn’t have to use ndiswrapper, but on the other hand, the Ubuntu documentation explained very clearly how to set this up.
OpenOffice works fine for this. And, if it’s really only rarely, I probably don’t own MS Office anyway.
My HP all-in-one works fine. I can print, I can scan, I can fax (not that I ever do), and I can read from the card reader slots. From any computer on the network. It really works better then it did in Vista. I had all kinds of trouble with it in Vista.
This may have been a problem when I first started playing with Linux years ago, but today it works just fine. Not just between browser windows, but between different applications. I can’t understand why you would have a problem with this. No, I’m not going to go looking for problems with Emacs. I don’t use Emacs. I’m not that much of a geek.
demimondian
@Once-Ler: You’re full of shitte if you think OO.o preso is adequate for anything beyond the most basic of presentations. Sorry — it just isn’t. And this:
…is, to put it charitably, nonsense. Find any window which uses document.write, and try to copy the text generated.
Epic fail.
Zuzu's Petals
@demimondian:
Good points.
Once-Ler
Once again,
For this kind of use, OO.o is just fine. I didn’t say it was for everyone.
Using Ubuntu 7.04 with Firefox 2 and Ubuntu 8.04 with Firefox 3 this has never, ever been a problem for me. I did it while editing this response.
Lettuce
It would be great if they’d not stopped producing the PowerPC version.
demimondian
@Once-Ler: Look, I use Ubuntu every day at work, and have an several old laptops here running it. I run into the inability to copy from a page written *with document.write* into an edit field every day. (PROTIP: that’s not how BJuice comment pages are generated.)
Steven Taylor
I have recently converted to a dual-boot Vista/Ubuntu set-up and use Ubuntu almost all of the time. I did a fairly extensive write-up here about a week ago.
demimondian
@Steven Taylor: Nice writeup on your blog — I recommend it highly.
I’ll echo one of your commenters — all of the servers here in the bunker run 64-bit Linux, but none of the desktops do. There’re just too many headaches and heartaches where the bitness of a plug-in and a container conflict.
Once-Ler
@demimondian
I’m not a javascript programmer, so maybe you could help me find an example. What am I not supposed to be able to do? How common is this, really, for an average user?
Comrade Kevin
@demimondian:
If this is such a fundamental problem for you, why are you using it?
Comrade Kevin
@ninerdave:
I don’t know much about how it actually works, but from what I could tell, it does multiple, incremental backups, but they are kept inside a single disk image file, and that got corrupted somehow.
demimondian
@Comrade Kevin: Don’t tell me, let me guess — you haven’t worked with user experience groups much, have you?
Seriously, next to nothing with any UI is a problem for me. Broken copy/paste *within a single application* comprise a deep failing for "real" users, though. More than that, though, that’s one which has been reported frequently, yet which *can not* be fixed within the constraints of F/LOSS. It’s emblematic of the overarching failure of the "Linux UI" movement that Fanbois tolerate clusterf*cks like that, even though they speak of Linux’s UIs in the same breath as Windows’ or the Mac’s.
Usability? Yeah, we’ve heard of it — it’s something to avoid.
Comrade Stuck
@Comrade Kevin:
Thank you, and nor do I, on a whole range of in the weeds computer stuff. I don’t know what document.write is, but everything I’ve tried to cut and paste text to has worked for me as a basic home user, which is what most folks are after all. The biggest problems, are running apps and services I liked in windows but can’t with Ubunt. I’ve only tried a couple with the Wine program and both have failed which means I’ll have to explore for alternatives. Which is fun.
I will miss Photoshop (tho can boot Windows at anytime) . Haven’t used GIMP yet, but noticed it has a Freehand cutting tool and a Move button, so hopefully if the urge hits me to put the head of Mitch Mcconnell on a Swamp Frog, I can, and will be a happy camper.
All in All, I would say using Unbuntu for my purposes so far, would be like comparing a Cadillac to the Windows Ford Pinto And everything is FREE.
Nutella
@Comrade Stuck
Is Ubuntu the Cadillac or is it the Pinto?
Once-Ler
@demimondian:
You keep saying that, but I haven’t seen any evidence of it yet.
gray lensman
I’ve been using Ubuntu (currently v.8.10) for about ten months on an old Toshiba M2 Tecra lapper. It has done everything I’ve asked, including integrating into a house with four Macs (Tigers all) and an XP Dell desktop. I like being able to try new kinds of software without having to buy them. I’m the geek that likes to have all kinds of tools even if I don’t use them very often. Makes me happy.
Mac is the one I use if I have to get something done. Linux is a little more resistant (don’t spring it on your grandmother). Windows offends me mostly. It’s still crude, rude and ugly even if it is much older than Mac OSX.
Comrade Stuck
@Steven Taylor:
thanks ST. your write up on ubuntu is great and understandable for us low techies.
Cain
@TheHatOnMyCat:
:)
I’m a product of the influence of evil friends who decided to take an innocent youth and corrupted him into a demented mind. Sad really.. I was so innocent.. I miss those days.
cain
Cain
Foresight has been pretty good for me so far. I’m a big ubuntu fan too.
Linux is slowly getting there in terms of dekstop. I installed Ubuntu on my mom’s HP laptop and I haven’t heard a peep out of her. Of course she just uses it for web browsing and hotmail so not much can go wrong. Plus, it’s Linux so people who come to visit can’t fuck around with the computer and install shit which almost always happens if you have family over and they want to use your laptop. When I come back to visit, I"ll probably upgrade her laptop for her.
@demi: Yeah, the wireless situation is pretty ridiculous. It’s still a problem, although Intrepid seemed to recognize my usb wireless dongle quite nicely. Mostly though, hardware guys need to document their specs or open their specs so that better drives can be written.
Back to my stupid problem, I’ve learned more about XP than I ever cared to and more about disks more than I care to. I just want to play some games, goddamitalltohell.
BTW, my wife got a macbook air, and she’s turning into one of those mac snobs. I’m sure John’s already there.
cain
demimondian
@Cain: MAC OS X sucks!
— demi "Actually, it’s my second MacBook Pro. Why do you ask?" mondian
jafd
Hello everyone!
Went from Windows to Kubuntu 8 – Hardy Heron – back in October (old computer dying, very low budget).
I’m on a slow dialup connection, and ‘gamers-modem’ seems lots slower than old Winmodem, and going to new versions of Firefox, Opera and Thunderbird simultaneously rather disconcerting ("Why’did all the _good_ things get changed!")
And I really miss ClipMate (www.thornsoft.com) – that’s been a prizewinning windows clipboard manager/extender for over a decade. Doesn’t seem to be anything comparable for Linux. Find myself much less productive without it.
Hope y’all have a healthy, happy, peaceful and prosperous 2009!
fenris
@demimondian:
..your prayers have been heard, my child. :p
No, what I meant by packages/sets of different apps… some distros push a particular program suite, and make it difficult to change – which ends up with end- users saying "this is linux, and this particular function does not work in linux". When it’s the programs you’re using together – between different environments, or with somewhat flimsy module- compilation when you’re having more than one library running at the same time, etc..
I mean – I’m using Opera/Thunderbird in a Gnome environment (..or fluxbox on my ps3), and it works exactly like you would expect it to work. It’s also possible to pre- package a variant of a distro to use configurations like that fairly easily (..see.. Gentoo).
..And if anyone actually implemented "formatted text cut and paste", that would be through a library a particular program could extend. (Clean and properly done. )
Copy- pasting other than that, for particular text- fields, etc., that depends on the implementation of the browser, and maybe the program you’re pasting into.
But yeah – you have a good point with whether or not this should be enforced in some way, so that certain program suites should implement a particular way of accepting copy-pasting with formatting, and maybe including options to pick up the code, etc.
But all of that’s actually possible, you know – it’s just that for the most part no one really will want anything else apart from copying just the text.
(Even if I’m pretty sure it would be a success if there was a library you could replace on compile time to make the clipboard eat and spit out formatted xhtml, and things of that sort…)
Jamey the plumber -- an American hero
That’s not a "progressive" trait; sounds more like you married into a family with bad taste–which is probably how you got them to accept you in the first place.
grendelkhan
I know at least one guy who uses Ardour in his studio setup, and seems reasonably happy with it. Then again, he has a day job as a sysadmin.
@demimondian: Could you provide a test case or a link to a bug report? I distinctly remember having plenty of problems with cut-and-paste back in the day, but nothing recently. If you can reproduce what you describe on a reasonably current distribution (i.e., not Firefox 1.5), and if I can follow your instructions in doing so, I’ll go file bug reports if none currently exist.
I assure you, speaking as someone who spends plenty of time filing bug reports, fixing bugs and working up test cases, that brainless fanboyism of the type referred to upthread ("You’re Doing It Wrong! Upgrade your kernel! You suck and Linux is perfect!") is unhelpful in every way. Some of us really do just want to help, though. Honest.
Also, if you’re describing the user-friendliness of the distro, why on earth are you bringing up Emacs?
grendelkhan
@fenris: As for formatted-text copy-and-paste, I know you’re using Opera, but Firefox has a sort-of way of doing this. Select the text, right-click, "View Selection Source", CTRL-C, then CTRL-V into your destination text field. It’s not foolproof–it just copies the raw HTML–but it beats retyping tags by hand.
fenris
..hm. "View selection source". That’s great – thanks for the tip. :) ..you know – I sort of was thinking of a way to allow duplicated clipboards, so you can extend something like "paste with formatting", or something of that sort – but that is a good workaround.
(note to suite- users: here firefox will use the same general text- based clipboard as before, so /all/ programs can use that "formatted" output if they can crunch html).
Friendless
I’ve been using Ubuntu for a couple of years – I switched over from Mandrake when it frustrated me too much. I almost never have a problem with it, unlike my son’s Vista laptop which sends me into a screaming rage every time I use it, and my fiancee’s Mac which is some combination of schizoid and useless. I recently upgraded from Hardy to Intrepid and ran into some nasty bugs – X would hang when it started and wireless networking wouldn’t go. Luckily I was sufficiently organised that I could go back to Hardy.
I do web serving, video editing, Skype, etc, and it all works fine, but of course I can’t run the commercial games or M$ stuff. It works for me.