Linux & Open Source Software, the Present 73
Mark writes to tell us that LinuxForums is running the second in a series of articles designed to reflect on "what Linux is, where it came from, where it's going, how to use it and why you should." With all of the recent talk about the perceived difficulties within the OSS community sometimes it is just good to take a look at our roots.
Related link (Score:5, Informative)
Reflect. (Score:3, Informative)
Welcome to part two of a series for beginners explaining what Linux is, where it came from, where it's going, how to use it and why you should.
In short: nothing to see here, except the forever raging flamewar of KDE vs GNOME.
Re:Rare Statement (Score:5, Informative)
Many people underestimate the differences between the two platforms. Often there are odd problems such that even if the app is supported on Windows, it may have limited functionality. For example, HERMES (a PHP app) is a pain to install on Windows because of a lack of symlinks, and SQL-Ledger (a Perl app) can't use MD5 authentication with PostgreSQL on Windows, nor does the LaTeX support work right if you are trying to print directly to a printer. In once case, it is a DBD::Pg versioning issue, and on the other, it is a limitation with the printing mechanism.
My advice to you is this: If it is designed for Linux, run it on Linux. If it is designed for Windows run it on Windows. If you need to consolidate, use SFU and Apache on Windows (I have never gotten Apache on Cygwin to work properly with PHP and even if it did, I suspect there would be performance issues).
Otherwise, if you need help integrating even if you don't like my advice, you can pay for our services
Re:Rare Statement (Score:1, Informative)
When studying how a closed program interacts with an open one, you can only look at one side for any direct information. The other side is a black box, and you're limited to guess-and-checking to find a solution.
Likewise, many fewer people with knowledge of the code will have posted information online, and even fewer of those people are interacting with the community -- so you'll find technical forums are usually filled with guess-and-checking rather than detailed explanations.
This could well be the reason you've had such difficulty getting help. When someone uses open-source programs, it's not that they necessarily encounter fewer problems, but that those problems can be solved without the original developer. If you're asking open-source developers to solve problems involving closed-source components, they'll understandably shy away from the unnecessarily arduous task of guessing how that black box works.
(Note that none of this is meant to justify the rude responses you've apparently been given.)
Re:GNOME vs. KDE debate again? (Score:3, Informative)