Linux, to be (Like Microsoft) or Not to be? 476
David writes "Stephen Shipman delivers a very articulate and concise view of how Linux fits in server and end user environments. He expresses his view in response to Nicolas Petreley's 'rant' in Linux Journal. He points out the subtle implications of efficiency versus consistency." From the article: "[...] efficiency (as measured by keystrokes) isn't the only metric for ease of use. Consistency must also be taken into account. Microsoft has made a lot of hay (and green) by flogging consistency".
Re:/etc/rant/slashdotted (Score:3, Informative)
Pack up the Microsoft sycophants and shoot them off to Mars.
When did Microsoft lose its status among open-source developers as the evil, or better still, incompetent empire? When did open-source developers stop trying to make software better than Microsoft's and start imitating everything Microsoft does? Why do we have to have an open-source Outlook, or an open-source dotNet? Sure, there are examples of how we do things better in Linux than Windows. But I'm getting really tired of the monkey see Microsoft, monkey do Microsoft mentality that has infected open source. And the operative word here is "monkey"--hint, hint.
Aside from being open and free, isn't superiority what got Linux where it is today? Once upon a time, Microsoft was under intense pressure to catch up to Linux stability (in my unhumble opinion, Microsoft still has a long way to go). Now we have several projects that exist for no other reason than to to catch up to and duplicate Microsoft software. Worse, we're duplicating architectural nightmares like the registry, and with no other apparent purpose than to be more like Windows.
I have nothing against cream-skimming the best features of Windows for use in Linux. But creating a registry for Linux is not cream-skimming. It's pond-scum-skimming. What happened to the days when people were appalled at the idea that you'd have to edit a registry in order to make this or that feature work the way you wanted? I don't care if the registry is binary or XML. It's a maintenance nightmare.
Next time you visit Redmond, take a look at big hole with teeth marks in the Microsoft butt. That's a "came back and bit it" bite mark left by the registry. While Microsoft is trying to get around its mistakes, we're busy duplicating them.
Here's another example. Emulating what OLE 2.0 brought to Microsoft Office is not cream-skimming. It's biohazardous-medical-waste-skimming.
I remember the original Microsoft demos of OLE 2.0. You paste spreadsheet cells into a Word document. You click on the cells and the word processor magically transforms into a spreadsheet program. That makes good demo, but did anyone ask what real value it offers? Aside from looking cool, that is? This feature is bad not because of what it does, but because of what it fails to do. It fails to make it easy to create a live link between the original spreadsheet data and what you paste into the document.
Fortunately, not everyone has imbibed from the punch bowl of Microsoft cool-aid. EIOffice, although it looks and feels more like Microsoft Office than OpenOffice.org or KOffice, actually came up with a fresh idea. Imagine that. Innovation. But it took a commercial company, not an Open Source community, to do it. The folks at Evermore Software (the makers of EIOffice) must have at least one non-Microsoft drone on board to enlighten the developers as to what really matters. EIOffice gives you a menu selection to paste a bit of spreadsheet into a document where the cells are live-linked to the original spreadsheet data.
And this next bit of information should send open-source fanatics into a tizzy. EIOffice is based on that evil, despicable language called Java. How dare they? Mono C#, Python, Ruby, maybe even Perl. But Java? Won't that encourage Sun to become dictator of the world if EIOffice gets popular? It's perfectly fine to copy Win32 DLLs in order to make Linux do Windows tasks, but heaven forbid Linux should be infected with a Java runtime. How Sun replaced Microsoft as the evil empire is beyond me. But don't get me started on that.
Back to OLE 2.0 and its successors. Of course, the OpenOffice.org and KOffice folks have faithfully duplicated this monstrosity. Hey, it's how Microsoft Office works. It must be the way to go, right?
That's what they want you to think. Who is they? I don't know, but I can't help but wonder if one or more people within some of these open-source projects are Microsoft moles.
"Here's the plan. Infiltrat
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Consistency to what degree? (Score:4, Informative)
Linux distro developers might want to explore voluntary standards for certain types of configurations. Maybe something like configuration assumptions for desktops v servers. Like that commercial with the Easy button? Maybe we have an "easy" configuration for desktop distros that tucks more the inner workings out of sight. But if you take away the inconsistency in the Linux environment, you may be undermining one of its most important strengths.
Re:converting others to linux users (Score:5, Informative)
Average users won't know the difference.
Of course, they wouldn't know the difference even if you didn't skin it.
Re:converting others to linux users (Score:2, Informative)
You can try out, Linux + Java based solutions with ServiceRules who is a small argentinian company that performed several linux migrations.http://www.servicerules.com.ar/ [servicerules.com.ar]
With the flamewars in mind (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Linux Registry? (Score:1, Informative)
/etc/rant (Score:4, Informative)
GConf is not nearly as much of a mess as this guy makes it out to be. Remember what programs did before GConf? they littered your home directory with
Remember X Resources? X Resources are another kludge that GConf seeks to replace. foo.bar.* String, or Program.foo String, all in one big file. At least what overrides what is clearly specified.
Each program has to provide parsing code for its command line and its configure files, stat() those files manually to determine if they exist, do overriding correctly...
But the GConf puts these configuration directives in an XML format in clearly-defined places and lets the individual application developers not have to write buggy, poorly-documented configuration management, and suddenly people cry 'registry'?
What was wrong with the Windows registry was its corruptible, unrecoverably binary format and the random distribution of keys between the system and user registries. GConf does not have executable keys. GConf does not let one user change system preferences unless that user is root. If a GConf configuration gets corrupt, that corruption is localized to the specific corrupt file, and the user can try to repair that file because it's XML and not some undocumented binary format.
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:3, Informative)
Not really. I picked all that up in about 20 minutes, had it down well enough to find it easier than Windows in less than an hour. And I hadn't touched a mac in about 10 years- that long ago they were probably more different from OSX than Windows is.
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Informative)
No. XP is 4 1/2 years old.
XP SP2 is a year and half old. And I still can't do lots of things (like full use of a USB thumb drive) using a non-priviliged account (not to mention that the default install on my Microsoft-partnered laptop came with the user accounts having full admin priviliges)
Your 'Vista will fix it' argument is quite frankly, the same thing I've heard about XP SP2, Win2k, NT4, & NT 3.5. It wasn't true for those operating systems and I doubt it will be true for vista.
Re:They may have "flogged" consistency, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Granted - there are plenty of little apps that can be "installed" in the manner you've described. But then, you CAN do the same thing with *nix applications too if you really want to (not that OSX is doing anything THAT special). I do on occasion. And some of the proprietary commercial games I've bought for Linux do, too (as well as various one-off builds of Firefox, SUN JRE, etc.).
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:2, Informative)
I have specifically had this problem in W2K3 server [and in WinXP]. The really sad part is that it was Microsoft's own programming [not a third party] that was the problem. After doing a Windows update [manually or the nightly automatic update] the machine often pops up a dialog asking if you would like to restart now or restart later. Well I had updated the server, but was NOT ready to reboot so I clicked "Restart Later". Well this dialog comes up every 2-3 minutes until you reboot. I was working on something else and as I went to click on something, the restart dialog popped up RIGHT as I clicked the mouse button. Of course it popped up with the "Restart Now" under the mouse button and proceeded to reboot.
Luckily no data was lost, but this is ***NOT*** something that needs to be happening in a server environment. And that's not even getting into the fact that it requires a reboot every month when the security updates come out. At least in Linux [I use Debian on servers] I only need to reboot if there is a major kernel security issue. Anything else only requires the service to be restarted.
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:3, Informative)
And, from a GUI usabilty standpoint, it violates almost every rule of good GUI design. Webmin bites. Hard. And that really just illustrates my point. The people that maintain these tools like complexity. End users don't.
Re:Microsoft (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Linux useability? (Score:3, Informative)
Gee, no, I don't realize it. Could it be because you're wrong?
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:3, Informative)
1.) Organize your Applications folder by creating subfolders. This step is not necessary, but in my opinion it makes the whole thing easier to use.
2.) Drag the Applications folder onto the Dock. Put it to the right of the separator bar.
3.) Right-click the Applications folder in the dock and get easy access to all your apps. Left-click it to open it in a Finder window.
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Consistency (Score:3, Informative)
There are some things that aren't files, like process information and configuration information (registry key values). One thing that Windows does more consistently than UNIX is to have a single namespace for all named objects, instead of having different ones for files, events, mutexes, etc.
At higher levels, I'd have to agree that Microsoft's consistency drops off considerably.
Lol. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Care to share? Also, what I'd like. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:4, Informative)
This just can't be left alone. It's so very wrong.
KDE will do a decent imitation of windows or mac, or it can even be configured to act more or less like a proper Unix gui as well.
Gnome is mac-and-windows-like in that it refuses to allow the user any choice, but other than that it's no more mac-like than KDE set to mac-like behaviour.
Ah! But that's where the fairy dust comes in. (Score:3, Informative)
Because X ultimately handles the display, there would be nothing to stop someone adding a skinning layer to X to add the ability to control the look & feel, disrupting exactly nothing, not altering a single application or window manager.
It would mean that those who like their system the way it is would have the system exactly the way it is. It would not impact anybody's ability to choose a different WM or desktop environment. All it would do is give you the ability to tailor it IF you so chose.
You already have some of that. KDE and Gnome both allow a lot of customization. Not to the degree I'd like, but it's there. Indeed, the ability to pick a Window Manager at all is a significant piece of customization.
I doubt I'll ever write this mod, but if I did, it would merely be offering you the option of having more of what you already have - choice - with no obligation to either take the option or even take the offer. That's leaving something alone fairly, because it's then by choice and not by design.
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:3, Informative)
windows [microsoft.com], mac [berlios.de].
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:3, Informative)
With Gnome, you can have newly opened windows pop up behind, rather than in front.
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:2, Informative)
There used to be the apple menu, which did what you are after, but some bright spark decided that the dock would serve as a worthy replacement, and apparently no amount of whining^Wrequests by the users seems to be able to convince apple to put it back.
There's quite a few apple menu replacements available, off the top of my head, I can only recall FruitMenu, however. For a better solution, go google for LaunchBar or perhaps Quicksilver, although spotlight on its own would probably serve well enough already.
The anti-aliasing that gets done on my iBook looks just fine to me, with Tiger, it claims to set anti-aliasing to be appropriate for whatever the main display is, I haven't tested it 'cause there aren't any CRT monitors in the house anymore. There's a setting in one of the control panels for setting the cutoff point for anti-aliasing as well.