Finally you listed the strong points in favor of Linux, BUT... You cannot seriously compare A/V editing FREEWARE to the real McCoy. How can Gimp compete with Photoshop for example? Based on price? Sure, that is a strong argument if you are willing to sacrifice efficiency and tons features. Also, it is undeniable, that most if not all of the A/V freeware can thank for its existence the real professional software. After all, what Freeware really does is mimic the real thing, and without the real thing there would be nothing to mimic. As for the other points, all that functionality is available on my Asus mobo directly in bios running linux from its tiny little memory. But if that is all there is to home computing, then why bother with hundreds of megabytes of code? Any smart-phone for under £200 can do all that in a much more energy efficient way. You guys seem to think that I somehow despise Linux or something. I simply don't think Linux is going to become a main stream home OS in the near future and it is best served being considered a great server solution or an educational alternative where money is an issue. It also makes for a great support system on all sorts of devices such as Bios's, A/V receivers, GPS devices etc, etc. Time will tell who's assessment was the correct one. All I can see so far is that this argument isn't new and the Linux home promise keeps failing to materialize. Maybe Ubuntu 10.10 will prove me wrong, although IHDT (I Honestly Doubt That)
You seem to be getting your undies in a twist very freely, in front of everybody... Who cares about Photoshop, unless you are a professional?!? We are talking most users - then talk most users only!!! If we were to talk profi users - a different ballgame! Do not constantly mix apples and pears. You are confused, I forgive you!
I have to relieve your pain and suffering somehow... But! You really ARE confused, you know... Not a laughing matter, if you wanna come across as serious...
Heh, interesting. So, he does have a point, if you're gonna bash a victim and the mugger the same way...
Victim & mugger? I see here one guys that tries to be helpful (you gorski) and the other that wants very much to express his personal opition very loudly (you madaload) Maybe Hyde Park Corner's Speaker Corner I could suggest... sebus
I tried Linux once......it doesn't even have Windows Live Messenger, and their alternatives are utter crap not to mention that its so hard to install an app in the first place
Not true. What is true is that you have no idea how to qualify your statements... It has 3 and at least two of them can do the A-V stuff - but for the fact MS is blocking them! Nothing is easier [much easier than in Windows!!!] than installing an app in Synaptic... Honestly, some people...
Oh yes, Linux's Synaptic package manager is the best. What could be more difficult than double-clicking an installer in Windows, right? Synaptic beats that any day hands down you're right gorski, some people...
I can tell you what beats double click... double-click Adobe installer, which ie accepts the key on Windows workstation that never had any previous Adobe software, but will simply not accept it when one had any previous version installed None OS is perfect & never will be (not in our time anyway) Use whatever you like & whatever does the job at hand & stop slacking one another! sebus
Sebus, after you told us to take it some place else I thought it was a sign of maturity on your part. Now a see I was very very wrong. If gorski is the helpful one and I am the loud one, then who are you? The righteous messiah? My opinion is only loud to you because you disagree with it. But that doesn't make me wrong or make you right. I have based my opinions on 20-ish years of Linux's failure to become "HOME USER" friendly, despite the fanfare especially Ubuntu is being anounced with. Every little build is celebrated as ground breaking technological progress, while in reality there has been very little notable changes. An average home user wouldn't even notice any difference from 8.04 Hardy Heron! You did nothing but misread my posts, misinterpret my words and even put some of your prejudices into my mouth. Basically, what both of you do is engage in logical fallacies. Namely, personal attacks and ridicule, because my points on installation and HW compatibility are irrefutable. You actually gave me the idea for my new signature. Cheers for that P.S.: Grow up, boys!
In Linux you just say go... Not so in Windows, at least many times... Loadsa "what about this" and "what about that"... Sometimes to a ridiculous extent... Most of the time in Linux you chose and click on "Apply"... So, you're missing the wood for the trees, as usual... These days Linux is user friendly!!! Grow up, indeed... ...credit etc.
Linux is userfriendly, as long as you want to do something with it, that the developers wanted to make userfriendly. As soon as you want to do something that the developers haven't thought of making easy it gets very very difficult. For example installing drivers that Linux doesnt ship with, or installing applications that are not present in synaptic. Also, making audio/video applications work, that dont work out of the box is impossible for a noob. Now, that wouldnt even be a problem when most of the stuff did work out of the box, but whenever i tried Linux (ubuntu) that just wasnt the case. It started with mouse buttons that where configured incorrectly, and endend with a grapics card driver that always crashed when i tried to set the native resolution of my display - which i couldnt do in the gui, because the driver didnt ship with ubuntu (and didnt install correctly, maybe?). i had to do it in a text file... Also i had to install the driver over the console... which i needed a guide for. I have never needed a guide on how to install a driver in windows... You may start to see my point. Linux just isnt ready for primetime yet. Too many (basic) things dont work as expected. For me anyway.
Flasher, windows is userfriendly, as long as you want to do something with it, that the developers wanted to make userfriendly. As soon as you want to do something that the developers haven't thought of making easy it gets very very difficult. Windows is almost as baffling a black box as linux is for a n00b, you just don't realise it becase you are relatively experienced with windows. The vast majority of people would never need anything outside the repos for something like ubuntu and thus would be fine if it was preinstalled on their system... I've preinstalled it for n00bs and they have been fine with it, it did what they wanted it to do. Remember, virtually no user EVER installs windows, if they had to they would hate it, having to find ahci/raid drivers to even install, virtually no drivers installed by default, having to hunt them all down and get the right versions, might not even have working network to connect to the internet to find them (windows 7 is better for this than XP but still bad)... Ubuntu installs on most mainstream hardware will be fine regarding drivers, it has better driver support out of the box than any windows version I've ever installed. Your nightware experience with display drivers is not the norm. Regarding things not working as expected, that is because you are used primarily to windows and it doesn't work the way you expect windows to work IMO. I'm not saying this isn't a flaw, I do think development should be put into mimicking windows in some ways to make transition easy since most people have only ever been exposed to windows, its just not a flaw in the way you are suggesting it is.
Well, i was expecting someone to tell me my experience is not the norm, and that my expectations are off. Obviously i disagree. I will go into a bit more detail: Before you can even start to install the ATI display driver, you have to make sure that you have a certain number of packages installed. They have names like "libstdc++". Wow, who doesnt know if he has that installed (irony)! You also need the "Kernel Module Build Environment". For that you need to download the kernel sources, and other stuff using your favorite package manager (none of this is described in the installation instructions). On the other hand you do find notes like this in the instructions: Aww, yeah, right... come again?! To finally install the ATI display driver, you have to start the installation from the command line(!). of course therefore you have to navigate to the correct location using commands not even described in the ATI installation instructions. Also you have to be a "superuser". The ati instructions dont tell you how to do this. Not everybody knows that he has to enter "sudo" or "su-". Logging in as root at the welcome screen is disabled by default if i remember correctly - so thats out of the question, you HAVE to know these commands... if you were successful anyway, and have clicked through the gui installer, you have to go to the command line again, and enter a command to configure the driver! of course you have to know which version of X.Org you are using to chose the right script(!). No ordinary user knows what X.Org is let alone which version they are using... And that is the procedure to install the graphics card driver on a supported distribution(!). You can imagine that it is a 100 times more difficult to install it on something other than ubuntu for example. I dont know about you, but in windows i just double click on the "exe" and click "next" twice, and I'm done. So much for the userfriendlyness. Well that might have been true for earlier verisons of windows, but in windows 7 - which i have installed on a number of pcs/notebooks - i hardly ever had to install a driver. Most of the drivers are there after the installation is finished. An increasing number of new drivers are even automatically installed via windows update - no hunting down of anything.
I had to install W7 drivers separately. Interestingly enough a LAN driver. So no go to search on the net for it blah-blah... And you do not read: I said I couldn't get HW to work with W7 for love or money! Philips webcam/cam, for instance. Ubuntu sorted it during the installation of the OS, no probs! I have never had any probs with Linux ATI video driver, which was proprietary. Install only from "update" functions - and run. It still functions, not just minimally, obviously, before you get the full capability - 3D etc. So, come again? It's not "personal", right?!?
Why would you think its "personal"? Because my opinion on linux doesnt match yours? I already agreed that package mangers like synaptic do a good job of masking the complexity of linux. Unfortunatly not every application or driver is present in the repositories! as soon as you have to install something thats not there it gets very difficult! the graphics card driver was just an example! for what its worth and as far as i know the "update" function doesnt necessarily supply the latest version. If im correct you still have to install it manually if you always want to use the latest version. this, by the way, is another problem. many of the people managing the repositories do this for free, in their spare time. the result is that the version thats in the repository, most of the time isnt the latest available version of any software. By only using the package manger to install software you can almost be sure, that you are 1-2 major versions behind. sometimes however you need the latest version if it has functionality that you want for example. I am just saying this to make it clear that there are good reasons for wanting to install software and drivers outside of the package managers. There are other problems that come with package managers too: Some time ago all of the managers of the debian repository stepped down, and there was no one left to care for it for a few weeks. As a result the versions in the repository became outdated, and some software even had security issues that werent fixed because there was nobody there to put the fix in to the repository. You can imagine what that meant for the people that relied on the package manager to update their software! On another note, im guessing that the typical repository only covers about 10-30% of all the usable linux software. So if you want it easy you have to hope that all you need is there. For everything else you need to study "howtos" and alot of "man pages". To make my point even more clear: In contrast to this, you can install 99% of all the Windows software with just a double click. You dont even have to read the "readme" most of the time. How is that for ease of use? Even if you dont agree with me you have to admit that im not just bashing linux for the fun of it. I have spent some time with it, and read a lot about it. Everything im telling you here is my personal experience which led me to the conclusion that linux is an operating system made by professionals and for professionals. What ubuntu is trying to do here is put lipstick on a pig, if you will.