Linux, is it worth trying?

[feersum.endjinn 6]

Linux is for work.

Windows is for fun.

That's why I'm running Windows 2000 Pro at home.

And Win2k and Linux at work.

[denoir 0]

So do you mean that when Microsoft does unethical things, like play dirty with patents, you say "oh well, thats how corporations work" and when a Linux developer copies a feature from Microsoft, that Microsoft copied from someone else, its bad and makes Linux suck?

No, I mean that just because Microsoft tries to earn money by selling software, doesn't automatically mean that they suck.

Quote[/b] ]

Well, how about... Apache?

Don't get me started on Apache. I ran it for two years and had a huge number of both security and configuration problems. Not so wiht IIS6. Plus with ASP.NET, it's not even comparable.

Quote[/b] ]I dont want to touch Gimp, especially the Windows version. I thought the discussion was about Openoffice, not Gimp... If Gimp doesn't support drag and drop, how does that make Openoffice bad?

Nope, it was a statement about the compatibility between free apps. Gimp may be great, Open Office may be great, but together - not so great.

Quote[/b] ]

Ever misclicked something with the mouse?

Nope, and it doesn't "happen to every guy".

Quote[/b] ]So, whats wrong with, say, Irix then? Or MacOS X?

Not standard for software developers.

Quote[/b] ]What if I'll install litestep to a windows system, remove IE and all Microsoft services... Will that make Windows platform suck since my Windows isn't so standards compilant anymore?

Most windows functions, such as drag-drop etc are part of the kernel and won't be affected by changing the shell. And you can run windows software - so while you might be shooting yourself in the foot, you still have a good foundation to stand on.

Quote[/b] ]You can use a Linux distro and go with the standards set by that distro, and everything will work very well. Or you can customize it, and install software that isn't made for your desktop, but its not the distro maker's fault if things dont work so well anymore.

Except for that Microsoft produces the development tools for Windows apps and enforces as much as it can its standards. Professional software developers tend to keep to those standards, giving the user a consistent environment - regardless of what type of software you use.

Let me ask you this: if you owned a software development firm, which wanted (as any company wants) to earn as much money as possible. Which platform would you choose for development - Windows (just XP sold 210 million copies) or Linux (estimated 18 million users)?

[walker 0]

Hi all

The best OS bar none was the AMIGA's

A Fully Multi-Threading Multitasking Windowing OS that ran off a 750 k flopy disk with real plug and play (Not windows fake plug and play with drivers to be installed) and all 10 years before Linux Microsoft and Apple.

It was fast, a dream to program easy to debug if only Commodore had sold that to microsoft back before windows 95 that is the OS we would be using.

As has already been said the key factor in the success of windows is that it is lead by a skilled business man who had the technical background to understand the market.

Kind Regards Walker

[kegetys 2]

Quote[/b] ]

So do you mean that when Microsoft does unethical things, like play dirty with patents, you say "oh well, thats how corporations work" and when a Linux developer copies a feature from Microsoft, that Microsoft copied from someone else, its bad and makes Linux suck?

No, I mean that just because Microsoft tries to earn money by selling software, doesn't automatically mean that they suck.

But its still ok for them to use dirty tactics to enforce their will? They're just trying to sell software, right?

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]

Well, how about... Apache?

Don't get me started on Apache. I ran it for two years and had a huge number of both security and configuration problems. Not so wiht IIS6. Plus with ASP.NET, it's not even comparable.

I have ran apache for a few years too and never had any problems with it, though once an update from PHP4 to PHP5 removed the PHP4 module from the config but didn't add the PHP5 one properly, but that was the dpkg config script's fault and not apache's... I dont even want to mention the security problems that IIS has had, the person who designed that thing had absolutely no idea of security.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]I dont want to touch Gimp, especially the Windows version. I thought the discussion was about Openoffice, not Gimp... If Gimp doesn't support drag and drop, how does that make Openoffice bad?

Nope, it was a statement about the compatibility between free apps. Gimp may be great, Open Office may be great, but together - not so great.

I dont think Gimp is so great, so its not very surprising that OO & Gimp aren't that great together.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]

Ever misclicked something with the mouse?

Nope, and it doesn't "happen to every guy".

So i'm the minorty and ignored by Microsoft. nice.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]So, whats wrong with, say, Irix then? Or MacOS X?

Not standard for software developers.

Huh?

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]What if I'll install litestep to a windows system, remove IE and all Microsoft services... Will that make Windows platform suck since my Windows isn't so standards compilant anymore?

Most windows functions, such as drag-drop etc are part of the kernel and won't be affected by changing the shell. And you can run windows software - so while you might be shooting yourself in the foot, you still have a good foundation to stand on.

Have you tried it? I have, and the whole OS became a quite painful experience of mystical errors and not working software.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]You can use a Linux distro and go with the standards set by that distro, and everything will work very well. Or you can customize it, and install software that isn't made for your desktop, but its not the distro maker's fault if things dont work so well anymore.

Except for that Microsoft produces the development tools for Windows apps and enforces as much as it can its standards. Professional software developers tend to keep to those standards, giving the user a consistent environment - regardless of what type of software you use.

I have seen countless Windows applications that are just painful to use, with horrible user interfaces. What's stopping Linux developers to follow standards set by the target environment they are developing for? nothing. Gnome even has a nice Human Interfaces Guideline for those developers who have no idea what a good UI is like.

Quote[/b] ]Let me ask you this: if you owned a software development firm, which wanted (as any company wants) to earn as much money as possible. Which platform would you choose for development - Windows (just XP sold 210 million copies) or Linux (estimated 18 million users)?

It would depend greatly on what I would be developing and who for. For example, if i'd be making a competitor for Photoshop, a Linux version of it could be a much better seller since a Linux version of Photoshop isn't available and the potential Windows customers propably use Photoshop already.

[toadlife 3]

Well, how about... Apache?

Apache is not GNU/GPL. It's got a BSD-style license.

MySQL is a good example of a "heavyweight" GPL application though.

[denoir 0]

Quote[/b] ]

So do you mean that when Microsoft does unethical things, like play dirty with patents, you say "oh well, thats how corporations work" and when a Linux developer copies a feature from Microsoft, that Microsoft copied from someone else, its bad and makes Linux suck?

No, I mean that just because Microsoft tries to earn money by selling software, doesn't automatically mean that they suck.

But its still ok for them to use dirty tactics to enforce their will? They're just trying to sell software, right?

They work within the law and when they don't they get hit with anti-trust lawsuits and stuff like that.

Am I bothered about their behavior. Not the least. If you want to get upset about big bad corporations, you should take a look at the companies that pollute the environment and use slave labour and stuff like that. In comparison Microsoft is on very solid ethical grounds.

Not to mention that Bill Gates is the biggest donor to charities in the world..

Quote[/b] ] I dont even want to mention the security problems that IIS has had, the person who designed that thing had absolutely no idea of security.

Yeah, but I think that they've got it fairly under control. Terminal Services are the biggest problem today, security wise.

IIS and Apache are however not really comparable today. Webservices and ASP.NET is basically a must-have for anybody developing web applications. And I'm not talking about personal taste, but really, there is no way of reproducing a N-tier solution web/rich client and database integration with perl or php the way you can do it in ASP.NET. Personally I have not worked anything with web-services, but what I've seen is really impressive.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]So, whats wrong with, say, Irix then? Or MacOS X?

Not standard for software developers.

Huh?

Few software firms develop for those platforms (compared to Windows).

Quote[/b] ]Have you tried it? I have, and the whole OS became a quite painful experience of mystical errors and not working software

LiteStep? Yeah, but I never got it to work properly. It was designed for Win 95/98 and I tried to install it under XP - might have had something to do with that.

Quote[/b] ]What's stopping Linux developers to follow standards set by the target environment they are developing for?

The choice between 500 different available standards that may or may not exist tomorrow.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Let me ask you this: if you owned a software development firm, which wanted (as any company wants) to earn as much money as possible. Which platform would you choose for development - Windows (just XP sold 210 million copies) or Linux (estimated 18 million users)?

It would depend greatly on what I would be developing and who for. For example, if i'd be making a competitor for Photoshop, a Linux version of it could be a much better seller since a Linux version of Photoshop isn't available and the potential Windows customers propably use Photoshop already.

Unliklely a wise business strategy since Linux users aren't as willing to buy software as Windows users are. Even by getting a small percentage of the Windows group, you can make a lot more money than from a large percentage of the Linux group.

[denoir 0]

Well, how about... Apache?

Apache is not GNU/GPL. It's got a BSD-style license.

MySQL is a good example of a "heavyweight" GPL application though.

Yeah, MySQL is fairly good. Not too good though. They have a very strange syntax for some commands, and some commands are missing.

Not an expert on database systems though - what I've seen of them made me want to run in the opposite direction. Can't say how MSSQL compares to MySQL.

[kegetys 2]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]

So do you mean that when Microsoft does unethical things, like play dirty with patents, you say "oh well, thats how corporations work" and when a Linux developer copies a feature from Microsoft, that Microsoft copied from someone else, its bad and makes Linux suck?

No, I mean that just because Microsoft tries to earn money by selling software, doesn't automatically mean that they suck.

But its still ok for them to use dirty tactics to enforce their will? They're just trying to sell software, right?

They work within the law and when they don't they get hit with anti-trust lawsuits and stuff like that.

You can do many bad things while still doing everything legally. A law doesn't tell you whats morally good or bad.

Quote[/b] ]

If you want to get upset about big bad corporations, you should take a look at the companies that pollute the environment and use slave labour and stuff like that.

Right, so its ok to do bad things because there's always someone doing even worse things?

Quote[/b] ]Not to mention that Bill Gates is the biggest donor to charities in the world..

He's also the richest man in the world (or second richest?), if he'd put, say, 33% of all the money he owns to charity, then i'd be impressed. Sure its good that he gives money to charities, but that doesn't justify Microsoft's ugly tactics either.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]So, whats wrong with, say, Irix then? Or MacOS X?

Not standard for software developers.

Huh?

Few software firms develop for those platforms (compared to Windows).

So that makes it a platform that doesn't have standards?

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]What's stopping Linux developers to follow standards set by the target environment they are developing for?

The choice between 500 different available standards that may or may not exist tomorrow.

When you pick a target environment, you pick the standard you use and you follow that. For example, if you'll choose to make a Gnome application, you can do things like instructed in that guide.

Can you tell me examples of professional Linux software that has a bad user interface?

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Let me ask you this: if you owned a software development firm, which wanted (as any company wants) to earn as much money as possible. Which platform would you choose for development - Windows (just XP sold 210 million copies) or Linux (estimated 18 million users)?

It would depend greatly on what I would be developing and who for. For example, if i'd be making a competitor for Photoshop, a Linux version of it could be a much better seller since a Linux version of Photoshop isn't available and the potential Windows customers propably use Photoshop already.

Unliklely a wise business strategy since Linux users aren't as willing to buy software as Windows users are. Even by getting a small percentage of the Windows group, you can make a lot more money than from a large percentage of the Linux group.

Its hard to speculate that kind of things, I could say Windows users aren't willing to buy software since they are used to get pirated copies. Linux users are often more "ethical" and might not go into piracy that easily. What would stop me from making my photoshop-clone available to both Windows and Linux?

[denoir 0]

He's also the richest man in the world (or second richest?), if he'd put, say, 33% of all the money he owns to charity, then i'd be impressed. Sure its good that he gives money to charities, but that doesn't justify Microsoft's ugly tactics either.

Actually it's something like 95%. He is leaving his kids a few million each - the rest will be going to charity.

Quote[/b] ]

So that makes it a platform that doesn't have standards?

No, it makes it a non-standard platform. Hence the lack of predictability for the user.

Quote[/b] ]

When you pick a target environment, you pick the standard you use and you follow that. For example, if you'll choose to make a Gnome application, you can do things like instructed in that guide.

The point is that if you make the choice of a Gnome application, it won't work very well with for instance KDE applications. And there's no guarantee how long-lived Gnome will be. With Microsoft, you know they'll exist for quite a long time and that everything on the Windows platform will work with it.

Quote[/b] ]Can you tell me examples of professional Linux software that has a bad user interface?

Corel Draw. Matlab. Both have pure Java on Linux, the latter has a Java-MFC combo on Windows.

Quote[/b] ]What would stop me from making my photoshop-clone available to both Windows and Linux?

Limited time and resources. If you want to primarily target the large mass of Windows users, then you need to make your application work like a windows application is supposed to work. So you would have to make a completely different interface for the Gnome/KDE/Whatever Linux based one. Not to mention that in Windows you'd be insane today not to base it on .NET. Which would rule out using just about any of the code for the Linux version. Bottom line, you'd have to do more or less two applications. And instead of making another implementation for the small Linux target audience, you could make for instance an Illustrator clone for the Windows system - and you'd get more people buying it - again because of the larger market.

[kegetys 2]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]

So that makes it a platform that doesn't have standards?

No, it makes it a non-standard platform. Hence the lack of predictability for the user.

Huh? Just because the masses dont use it it means its not predictable? Is MacOS X hard to use?

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]

When you pick a target environment, you pick the standard you use and you follow that. For example, if you'll choose to make a Gnome application, you can do things like instructed in that guide.

The point is that if you make the choice of a Gnome application, it won't work very well with for instance KDE applications. And there's no guarantee how long-lived Gnome will be. With Microsoft, you know they'll exist for quite a long time and that everything on the Windows platform will work with it.

You never know what will happen, Microsoft is a business, and therefore on a less solid ground than a open project. If the business goes, or if the product becomes non profiting (though hardly likely in the near future in Microsoft's case ) there won't be any updates, ever. If the current developers of Gnome decide to not develop it anymore, anyone can pick it up and keep on developing it. Gnome is a big enough project to live long. Even if Gnome would die, it wouldn't be that much work to do a KDE or whatever port (Though QT has licensing costs for commerical software, so KDE is not a very good target environment).

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Can you tell me examples of professional Linux software that has a bad user interface?

Corel Draw. Matlab. Both have pure Java on Linux, the latter has a Java-MFC combo on Windows.

Heh, I didnt even know Corel Draw still exists... But if they are Java applications then its no wonder that they have a crappy UI.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]What would stop me from making my photoshop-clone available to both Windows and Linux?

Limited time and resources. If you want to primarily target the large mass of Windows users, then you need to make your application work like a windows application is supposed to work. So you would have to make a completely different interface for the Gnome/KDE/Whatever Linux based one. Not to mention that in Windows you'd be insane today not to base it on .NET.

I dont see .NET as ant kind of requirement for today's software, I can't think of seeing any programs what would have required the .NET framework other than some OFP tools in ofpec... And wasn't .NET supposed to be available to other platforms too?

Anywyay, its not that hard to make separate user interfaces, the layout would still be the same. On a program like Photoshop the user interface development would propably be a very small part of the total development work required anyway, so doing two versions of the UI would be a minority of the work required for the project.

Quote[/b] ]And instead of making another implementation for the small Linux target audience, you could make for instance an Illustrator clone for the Windows system

I dont think that with the workload of doing another version of an user interface I could do an Illustrator clone.

[denoir 0]

I dont see .NET as ant kind of requirement for today's software, I can't think of seeing any programs what would have required the .NET framework other than some OFP tools in ofpec... And wasn't .NET supposed to be available to other platforms too?

It's not a requirement, but if you don't want to throw away your time, it's a good idea to use it. For some applications, it is a must - namely modern server-side web coding. It is a generation ahead of anything else.

As for other platforms, there is the Mono project for Linux, but it's still very much work in progress. Should they at one time manage to get it fully MS .NET compatible, then it's a different story.

Quote[/b] ]Anywyay, its not that hard to make separate user interfaces, the layout would still be the same. On a program like Photoshop the user interface development would propably be a very small part of the total development work required anyway, so doing two versions of the UI would be a minority of the work required for the project.

Evidently the amount of work required is larger than the potential profit for it - otherwise Adobe would have made a Linux version of Photoshop.

You see the point I'm trying to make? Just the fact that an overwhelming majority uses Windows makes it far more profitable to develop applications for it. And with the majority of applications being developed for it, other systems can't really compete.

[kegetys 2]

Quote[/b] ]Evidently the amount of work required is larger than the potential profit for it - otherwise Adobe would have made a Linux version of Photoshop.

I'd imagine that Photoshop wasn't originally coded as being multiplatform, so the Windows version is Windows only code and the Mac version is Mac only code, so making a Linux version would be more work than just doing an UI for it. Though thats all just speculation.

Quote[/b] ]You see the point I'm trying to make? Just the fact that an overwhelming majority uses Windows makes it far more profitable to develop applications for it. And with the majority of applications being developed for it, other systems can't really compete.

Linux can compete, it already has alot of software, and that software is free. The most widely used programs (www, email, etc.) are very good. I see no reason why it wouldn't keep getting more users, especially as Microsoft seems to be going the wrong way with their attitude and tactics.

[der bastler 0]

[yoda]

Denoir, I sense much fear in you...

[/yoda]

SCNR

Unliklely a wise business strategy since Linux users aren't as willing to buy software as Windows users are. Even by getting a small percentage of the Windows group, you can make a lot more money than from a large percentage of the Linux group.

Well, Microsoft grew big with allowing piracy to get a large user base. They still allow illegal copies...

Windows (just XP sold 210 million copies) or Linux (estimated 18 million users)?

Just to add that most of the modern PCs are bundled with XP --you hardly have a chance to avoid paying the MS tax...

But ok, they sold many copies...

[HellToupee 0]

Even with NT design microsoft seems to have been really shortsighted (as always) since they seem to have some serious problems in getting the x86-64 version of XP out.

It depends on which parts you are refering to. For instance the file system and memory management is excellent. Linux is very far from anything similar. Microsoft Networking on the other hand is complete crap - because they didn't anticipate the need when NT was designed.

Quote[/b] ]Whatevery they make they make for the present and dont seem to care what comes in the future, but then again they dont have to either, its the customers that have to pay for new products all the time.

I'd say on the contrary. When they saw that the DOS variety would not work, they did NT from scratch. And it was designed by David Cutler - the same guy who wrote VAX/VMS, the most long-lived OS ever built.

A few years back, they realized the problems of swtiching to 64 bit. Longhorn is .NET based, so besides writing the CLR, there is basically no additional work of porting. As for the XP/NT story - NT ran just fine on 64-bit Alpha processors. By the time of W2k Microsoft streamlined the core because NT was a bit too general and had performance issues. That streamlining continued with XP so by the time they got to the 64 bit editions, they had some additional stuff they had to do. In the future with .NET, it won't be a problem.

Quote[/b] ]If Unix is so bad, then why is microsoft so scared of Linux, and why are they implementing features to Longhorn that are imitated from Unix, like proper, flexible command line tools?

I'm not under the impression that Microsoft is scared of Linux - I don't even get the feeling that they care. They were a bit alarmed of the temporary successes of the Open Source movement, but that has nothing to do with Linux or Windows.

As for imitating Unix - it's Microsoft - what do you expect? They copy, borrow and steal stuff from everywhere. But to be fair the only thing that the Linux community has been doing for the past 10 years is stealing from Microsoft and making Linux more like Windows. One distinguishing feature with Linux is that they have not come up with anything innovative by themselves.

As for proper command line tools - well, you can do that with W2k/XP/WS2k3 as well. Just install a third party bash or cshell as your default command line engine. I think however it's pretty much lost on Windows. Different type of interaction. In an X-window system, the xterm is central. In windows the command line tool is not part of the regular usage flow.

Linux NTFS support is comming along you have been able to read them for ages, and with limited write support. Windows memory management better than windows?? never seen anyone say that before.

And windows not scared of linux? they are scared alright, they just lost china to linux despite even releasing the source code to them, plus they are making a special version of Xp called xp lite that will cost bugger all and minus al the bloat in some countries(not all counties, as for as long as they are willing to spend the money for xp(xp retails 800$ here) they will not release it) as people just arnt buying xp.

As for linux being hard to use, sure its not as easy as windows but some places its easyer, installing linux is much easyer depending on distro. Try suse which novell bought and made free, very easy install very easy to configure, only areas let down is installing apps. In iwndows install something it works, in linux in suse's case uses rpms it might need program Y to install program X etc.

[HellToupee 0]

Quote[/b] ]Evidently the amount of work required is larger than the potential profit for it - otherwise Adobe would have made a Linux version of Photoshop.

I'd imagine that Photoshop wasn't originally coded as being multiplatform, so the Windows version is Windows only code and the Mac version is Mac only code, so making a Linux version would be more work than just doing an UI for it. Though thats all just speculation.

Quote[/b] ]You see the point I'm trying to make? Just the fact that an overwhelming majority uses Windows makes it far more profitable to develop applications for it. And with the majority of applications being developed for it, other systems can't really compete.

Linux can compete, it already has alot of software, and that software is free. The most widely used programs (www, email, etc.) are very good. I see no reason why it wouldn't keep getting more users, especially as Microsoft seems to be going the wrong way with their attitude and tactics.

tho i imagine porting the mac photoshop couldnt be too hard, mac is very similar to linux and the display i think follows X11 standard.

[HellToupee 0]

I believe the reason why people are more angered when Microsoft does copycatting is because Microsoft makes money directly with their copied ideas. Linux itself is free, and those who make money with Linux do it mostly indirectly with "side products" like technical support, manuals, etc and not with the copycatted ideas. Lately Microsoft also seems to have been interested in patenting everything, including things that have been used for a long long time already like this. I find that very dirty, since they know that nobody in the open source movement has the money to do a court case to challenge that patent, even though the roots of sudo that does the same thing as that patent go back to 1980.

Yes, most linux fanatics seem to have a problem with the concept of "capitalism".

no just the concept of monopolism

Quote[/b] ]

There are not really any common standards in the Unix world - and that's their fundamental problem. While Sun, HP and SGI were bitchslapping each other over trivial differences, Microsoft leaped ahead. And it's the same story all over again. You have KDE doing their stuff and GNOME pushing their agenda with at least another dozen of factions re-inventing the wheel and fighting over which standard to use. Now while that extensive number of choices might be appealing to individuals and hobby computerists, it's scaring away any major business. And that's why even the most trivial things like drag-and-drop won't work, unless you use software from just one faction.

KDE and gnome do follow standards www.freedesktop.org

That is why you can drag and drop copy and paste between kde and gnome/gtk apps. The GUI follows the X11 standard, even the kernel follows a standard http://www.ieee.org/portal/index.jsp

Mircrosoft hardly follows more standards, its bad for business for them, anything that encourages crosscompatability hurts them.

[der bastler 0]

Mircrosoft hardly follows more standards, its bad for business for them, anything that encourages crosscompatability hurts them.

Right!

To mention HTML, Java, XML. Typical Microsoft strategy: hijack, pervert, get away with it.

You can still find pages which say "designed for IE5 and 1024x768". Let me guess... made with MS web design tools which incorporate special MS-HTML tags and styles...

But IE didn't learn proper CSS...

Or MS-Java: applications only full functional on MS platforms. Er, Java was meant to be platform independend...

And so on and so forth.

[vektorboson 8]

Adding my stuff to it:

I actually see the lack of standardization (not standards) rather as an advantage of linux. It's because of this that the Linux OS is secure compared to Windows.

You don't find the double-click-mentality like in the Windows-world.

"Oh, cool, there's an EXE, let's double click it and see what it does."

Instead you have to mark an executable as executable in the file system, when saving a file from an attachment. Those are those differences between Linux OS/BSD/Desktops and Windows.

And all that Drag&Drop, it may be nice for someone who is a virtue with the mouse, but I know some older man, who lost 4 pages in Word because of Drag and Drop. I advice him to use Copy&Paste instead of Drag&Drop. Drag&Drop is evil, especially after I don't know how often I dragged the texture library/LOD window in O2light away from its position.

And considering no innovation in the OSS-community, there actually is innovation. I'll take KDE as an example, which I don't think of a Windows clone. Once you detected kio_slaves, you will miss this function on every other Desktop system. I can open files from everywhere over any available protocol. I can Drag & Drop files over a SSH connection from my university account to my home computer and vice versa.

And last but not least. I think the most valid point why prefer a Linux OS/BSD OS is because of the freedom attached to those. You are free to do with them what you want, you can change them, you can copy them, you can give them to friends, all legally.

I've paid for three different version of my SuSE-distribution, and I probably would pay for a better image manipulation program than the Gimp (which I absolutely dislike).

As to Colossus, I'd try a Linux distribution, preferably Mandrake or SuSE, since those are targetting at end users but are not dumbed down like Lindows/Linspire or Xandros.

Or, download Knoppix. You can start Knoppix from CD and it doesn't touch your harddrive at all. It has even Read/Write-Support for NTFS.

[benu 1]

"Oh, cool, there's an EXE, let's double click it and see what it does."

Actually, i can do this as i have set up exe files to be opened with winex automatically

Quote[/b] ]Or, download Knoppix. You can start Knoppix from CD and it doesn't touch your harddrive at all. It has even Read/Write-Support for NTFS.

I would recommend knoppix too, it runs from cd (although that makes it slower compared to running from hdd), you don't have to repartition and install and you can install it on the harddisk later if you like it. New version is out since a few days, containing freenx software.

[kegetys 2]

I guess false advertising is part of the everyday life of a honest, customer-caring corporation too.

[theavonlady 2]

I guess false advertising is part of the everyday life of a honest, customer-caring corporation too.

LOL! On a z900! I work with these.

Just so you should all get the feeling of what these 2 meter high beasts are, here's a pic:

More info at IBM.

[void_false 1]

actually i'm browsing web under linux ATM. just installed it and testing things out

[Pathy 0]

what do you think so far?

[denoir 0]

I guess false advertising is part of the everyday life of a honest, customer-caring corporation too.

It's a bit odd, I don't see what they are objecting to.

You have a Linux running on two super-expensive main-frames and performing worse than WS 2k3 running on a cheap dual 900Mhz Xeon machine.

The point being that Linux requires far more serious hardware to get performance comparable to WS 2k3. What's the problem?

[kegetys 2]

I guess false advertising is part of the everyday life of a honest, customer-caring corporation too.

It's a bit odd, I don't see what they are objecting to.

You have a Linux running on two super-expensive main-frames and performing worse than WS 2k3 running on a cheap dual 900Mhz Xeon machine.

The title of the ad was "Weighing the cost of Linux vs Windows", theres nothing in it about performance.