How Linux and Windows Stack Up in 2006 193
Jane Walker writes "How does Linux stack up to Windows in 2006? Experts weigh in on that question in these articles, comparing the operating systems' security, reliability and usability. Get insiders' views on Microsoft's proprietary stack versus open source software, as well as Windows-to-Linux migration tips."
Installing stuff, handling network settings (Score:2)
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- SuSE 9.1 or later
- Mandriva (formerly Mandrake)
- Linspire
FWIW, it's not a single CD. It's either several CDs or a single DVD, but yes, it is doable. Boot off the DVD, follow the install wizard, you now have a dual-boot (depending on distro your NTFS partition can be resized automagically), and you have to reboot only once during the process, unlike Windows' cryptic install screens, wiping out your MBR to prevent other OSes from loading, and having to reboot 4,281 t
Re:Installing stuff, handling network settings (Score:5, Insightful)
Now my home Ubuntu computer has decided (again!) that flash doesn't need sound. No more Youtube for me anymore...
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I've found that using either EasyUbuntu or Automatix tends to help get the multimedia stuff working. If a package update breaks it again, I just re-run which ever one I used and it fixes stuff again.
BTW: my own experience with these two utilities, if you haven't used them yourself --
Automatix's tweaks tend to work, but the script is often buggy and not exactly user friendly. Their repository is also almost unusab
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As for me, I've used EasyUbuntu, Automatix, and Ubuntu Guide, and I'm just sick of tweaking stuff. I have another friend who I gave Mepis to (see my journal) and she's all cool with YouTube and podcasts and all that crap now and I'm jealous. She's the newbie, why can she do things I can't? So I think I'm going to switch to Mepis.
Re:Installing stuff, handling network settings (Score:5, Insightful)
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Using vi in a console.... (Score:3, Funny)
This issue *is* common, it's the real reason Linux isn't making big inroads and it doesn't look like it's going to be fixed anytime soon.
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Linux?"
Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_A
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Step One: wine
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Windows can be very simple to diagnose, but you have to know where to go. You have your registry. You have your error logs. You have your startup locations. That's about it.
Anti-disclaimer: I use linux as my primary OS, and have for a long time, plus several years as a server admin. However, I have spent a long time fixing windows
You find it easier. However, you are not the norm. At least Windows applications try somewhat to play nicely... better than much half
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XXX when it works is perfect. XXX when it doesn't is just weird and fucked up.
Yeah, I agree.
Though for me it's usually windows that's being weird, as I'm much more familiar with Linux.
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Seems to me that it all comes down to a certain level of familiarity with the OS defines if XXX=Linux and YYY=Windows or the other way around. I think there is a fundamental difference in philosophy on how to manage an OS or how an OS should be structured to make it manageable.
Personally I think there is a much higher level of detail available in Linux than there is in Windows. But Windows tries to be more self configurable than Linux. Proof? The configuration tool for Linux is VIM. The configuration
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Shudder... regedit. Actually there is nothing particularly evil about the tool itself. Some mechanism for comments would have been nice. The real wtf is the binary format, the "one big config file" for not only Windows, but all of your application settings as well, and the reckless abandon with which the monstrosity has grown. Single point of failure? You betcha. The actual implementation and use of the registry is a crime against nature. Somebody in Redmond should h
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To be fair, the registry isn't nearly as prone to outright corruption when you're running it on NTFS 5 than it was in Win9x with FAT.
Of course, like you say, it's such a monstrosity... you can't actually walk through it and notice a problem like you can with config files.
The registry wasn't a bad idea (it's basically a standardized config file format with more efficient read/write and mutual exclusion), but the way Microsoft used it (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, anyone?) made it a mess.
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I find it's the opposite. When Linux doesn't work, I might be able to fix it, or at least see why it's not working. With Windows, it's a black box. I can try to reboot and uninstall/reinstall various drivers, service packs, DLLs, etc., and if I'm lucky, I'll come up with a procedure that mysteriously works more often than others. Actual solutions are often nowhere to be found.
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I wasn't comparing it to Windows. I like Windows even less.
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Whatever. I did that like 3 months ago and it didn't help. Followed some other advice in the forums, and it worked, but now it's randomly decided to stop again. Whatever. I'm switching to Mepis.
Re:Installing stuff, handling network settings (Score:4, Insightful)
It depends on how fancy you want to get, and on your hardware. Certain distributions (e.g. Ubuntu) make it very easy to install the system while wiping everything that was there off the harddisk, and they do a good job at autodetecting a lot of hardware.
Things get more difficult if you want to set up a dual-boot system, preserve (some) of the data that was on the harddisk before the Linux install, customize what apps are installed, run Windows or Mac software, etc. etc. Whether or not this is beyond the reach of any particular user is mostly up to how much this user knows and is willing to learn; i.e. it's not particularly difficult to wipe OpenOffice.org off an Ubuntu install and install Koffice instead, but it does take a certain amount of effort and knowledge.
As for hardware not being supported, there are certain classes of hardware that are problematic. Most generally, any new or unpopular-with-developers hardware that doesn't adhere to some standard and for which no specification is publicly available. In particular, WinModems (software modems), wireless network cards, and video cards (specifically, the hardware acceleration features) tend to be problematic. Having said that, in each of these classes there are plenty of devices that _are_ supported, and, of course, there are devices outside these classes that don't work. Also, sometimes things fail to work in Linux because they are broken, although they happen to work in Windows; e.g. I had a laptop once whose USB controller didn't work due to a wrong value listed somewhere in the BIOS; it (sort of) worked under Windows, but it took some patches to the Linux kernel to get it to work there.
Searching the web to see if your hardware is supported is a good idea, and I recommend anyone buying hardware to consider Linux compatibility even if they don't want to run Linux; if you ever do want to run Linux, at least your hardware won't prevent you from doing so.
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The standard Ubuntu install comes with the usual office suite, browser, email, and many more additional apps than I've ever been able to use. If you're tied down to a particular app that only runs on Windows, then Microsoft owns your ass; otherwise, it's a piece of cake.
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The only panic is how they get on the internet
A dialout modem is sheer panic....most of the time I will switch over to a known good modem
Only once did I hit a network card that didnt work and that was a Davicom
and then mostly the 2nd most feared thing is their printer....especially an all in one monster
I've been lucky and never had to make an all in one work just print....or talked them into
buying a laser printer.
I love it when s
Crappy hardware (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the same thing when people say "XP is rock-solid for me" and I answer "I get plenty of blue screens in XP", they say "the problem is in the device drivers".
Distributions like Ubuntu, Mandriva, or Suse, which have powerful installers, usually get all the hardware working automatically. Other distros, like Debian, Gentoo, or Slackware normally need a bit of fiddling to get all the hardware working. But if you
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It does work almost out-of-the-box on Debian, though. (Or, I guess technically, it will work in the next release. It works in etch.) Want the ATI drivers? Run "module-assistant auto-install fglrx" (or the short fo
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m-a a-i nvidia
In fact, it's easier than installing the nVidia drivers on Windows.
WTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
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Got to love it
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Windows Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a computer geek who regularly uses Windows. Yes, I know, boo, hiss, whatever. My software development happens under Windows because that's what I learned on, that's where most of the market currently is, and that's what I've got a job doing. I'm not going to stop working for a company I like doing what I enjoy just because I happen to do my work on Windows.
In any case, periodically I load Linux on an alternate hard disk in my machine to play around with it and see what I can get going. I do like to keep my knowledge of it up in the event that I run into it on the job (I also do field work from time to time), but I also like to see how far it has progressed. At some point in time, I really would like to use it as my core operating system, even if I still have to drop into Windows when I work.
Recently (about a week ago), I decided to try a couple of different distributions. They all seem to suffer from one problem -- the USB keyboard no longer works when it hits the installer. "You forgot to turn on legacy mode for USB in your BIOS!", is the first thing most people would say, except that I haven't forgotten to turn it on. It works perfectly fine for the BIOS-based boot menu. I even triple checked it, thinking I was missing something. I tried numerous options to try and get the damn thing working, to no avail.
Yes, I could get a USB to PS2 converter and yes, it does work fine after that. But that's not the point -- I shouldn't HAVE to do that. Critical things like that will kill any interest your average user will have in the operating system. But, for what it's worth, I was very pleased with what I saw after I did finally get it loaded. It's come a long way from the operating system I tinkered with 6 or 7 years ago.
Which distros? (Score:2)
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I
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I downloaded the latest Ubuntu today, to try that. I was extremely pleased to find that everything works fantastic, including my USB keyboard. Must just be a distro thing... but I think I'll stick with Ubuntu. Been a while since I saw it lst, and from what I've seen so far, I'm liking it even more than Fedora. Based on the other comments to my post, I think Debian-based distros like my computer better.
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Most likely Ubuntu has a newer version of the kernel that can detect and work around something weird in your USB keyboard and/or the USB chipset in your motherboard.
Anyway, good luck with linux... once you get to know it, you'll probably find yourself wanting to use windows less and less.
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You know, not saying you're wrong, but I'm getting tired of hearing this argument. Since when is it not your responsibility that your hardware is compatible with the software you want to run? Windows doesn't support every piece of hardware that Linux supports, either. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, say, Ubuntu supported more hardware out of the box than Windows XP.
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If Linux supports the USB keyboard when it's fully installed, there's no reason that the installer shouldn't except the programmers of it didn't bother to do any sort of QA process what-so-ever.
If you go to (to use an example) Ubuntu's website, and check the specs, and it says right there in black and white "supports USB keyboards," then that means it should support USB keyboards all-around. If it doesn't, it should say "supports USB keyboards (PS/2 keyboard required for install)" or something tha
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Honestly, more than anything, I wish I knew why.
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Secondary, which distribution(s)?
YMMV
Ratboy
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I mentioned the distros in another message, but I'll post 'em here:
Fedora Core 5
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
And I tried an old version of Ubuntu (Warty)
I would really like to use Fedore Core 5, though. I finished getting it running with a PS2 converter, but it still doesn't work with just the USB. From what I've used of it so far, I like it. I know I can just leave it like that, but it's bugging me, and I would like it to work without it.
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I currently on contract with ATI/AMD, but I'll see if I can squeeze out some cycles to look at this (again, I am intrigued). Not tonight, though...
Ratboy
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I agree, it is a really odd problem. I did a lot of looking on the web, but nothing came of it.
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But, it too had similar problems on a different motherboard. I'll try it anyway.
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Right. So we'll mandate that people acquire every possible piece of hardware on the planet before they're allowed to put together a Linux distribution. Because, you know, the Windows installer also supports all makes and models of SATA drive and SCSI controller that an installed Windows supports, without requirin
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That has nothing to do with what I said. What I said is that if the distribution claims to support a particular piece of hardware, they should QA their install process to make sure that particular piece of hardware works. I was assuming when I wrote that that the USB keyboard worked after the distro was installed but (as the original poster replied) it turn
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But they didn't claim to support _that_ particular piece of hardware, they (allegedly) claimed to support "USB keyboards". The unfortunate user has a single USB keyboard that doesn't work. You claimed this meant the distributor didn't perform "any QA process whatsoever". Apparently, to
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It doesn't matter, because (regardless of the sub-model of device) they all work flawlessly in Windows. The OS they're advertised to work with.
The problem is the Linux users who lied to me about their working, when at least one of the people who told me this KNEW that not all WinPVR 250 cards works. All the IVTV
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They may not have been intentionally misleading you. I have a video capture card and if someone asked me if it worked under linux then I would say yes. Then if it later came out that there were different versions of that card being sold under the same name I suppose you could say I was misleading you. But it would be more accurate to say the manufacturer was misleading you by saying that your card was the same as my card when it wasn't.
Not sure why you'd blame Linux for lying to you when it was the manuf
LINAPCP - (Score:3, Informative)
To anyone just wanting to run their PC, get user-oriented applications on CD or downloaded as a file... or experiment with some code that their teachers and pals across town can download as a file and run... "Linux" (nee Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, Linspire, Xandros, etc, etc) feels like a big headache. Your friends are trying out "Linux" too? Well, you've probably got to learn packaging, dependencies, repositories, etc. before you can expect your experiements to run at all on anyone else's system. The fragmented distro scene is like chlorine against budding application developers needing platform stability in order to express their creative urge.
So in the crucial desktop PC space, Windows and Mac will continue to have a considerable edge.
People here often forget what makes the PC experience special: The uniformity of a platform aimed at *their* needs (not just those wanting to experiment with new encryption and packet-switching schemes), primarily the ability to install apps and drivers at will (and before you issue the kneejerk response, no Mac OS does NOT suffer by advancing these essential platform qualities).
Anyone wanting GNU/Linux + Whatever to shine as an alternative for PC users should get behind the new LSB Desktop spec. that is due this December/January. At least then ISVs (not just system hackers) will have something uniform to target as far as APIs and other features are concerned, and we should see more creative and wonderful applications that can draw end users to the platform.
To those who don't care or hate the idea, perhaps because of the notion that elitism is what keeps GNU/Linux good and secure, I suggest adopting a tolerant and polite attitude instead; No one will be forcing you at gunpoint to use distros conforming to LSB Desktop. The desktop PC needs a workable free alternative, and we're looking to geeks to either help or get out of the way.
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His daughter wants to experiment with some simple ideas in automatically manipulating media files, and can choose her father's Windows partition or the SuSE partition on the same machine.
(We'll ignore that that SuSE installer will change the C: partition to 'hidden' which causes the XP disk checker to freeze on bootup, a Redmond "oops". Assume the installation works.)
Over a period of, say 3-4 years returning repeatedly to s
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Yes, on the surface. But there are too many influential PC users (or 'power users) who would not be drawn to the OS without titles like Photoshop, a Quicken, etc. that are polished and inspired.
If RPMs are so great, where are the apps I can download and install in a single RPM file?
And man pages are, of course, insufficient to
this makes me think of ... (Score:3, Insightful)
* that all people of all computing orientations should be proud, not ashamed, of being young white middle-class Linux-geek men;
* that computing diversity is a gift to young white middle-class Linux-geek men;
* that computing orientation and operating system type are inherent, unless of course you dual-boot Windows and FreeBSD and are therefore only fooling yourself.
Pride Parades are held worldwide, wherein young male white middle-class Linux geeks of all colours, ages, operating system types and backgrounds can walk down the centre of the main street of their city and commemorate the original Stallmanwall printer driver riots.
Many parades still have at least some of the original political or activist character, especially in less Linux-positive settings. However, in more Linux-positive cities, the parades take on an installfest-like character. Large parades often involve floats, coders, Mountain Dew, venture capitalists, and amplified music; but even such celebratory parades usually include political and educational contingents, such as local politicians and marching groups from open source institutions of various kinds. In some countries, Linux parades are now also called Linux Pride Install Festivals.
Even the most festive parades usually offer some aspect dedicated to remembering victims of Stallmanwall and anti-Linux FUD. Some particularly important Linux parades are funded by governments and corporate sponsors, and promoted as major tourist attractions for the cities that host them. Other typical parade participants include local Linux-friendly churches such as Emacs Community Churches and BSD Universalist Churches, PFLAB (Parents and Friends of Linux and BSD), and the nerd employee associations from large businesses.
Though the Stallmanwall riots themselves as well as the immediate and the ongoing political organizing that occurred following them were events that were fully participated in by BSD users, X11 people and future Sun founders as well as by white middle-class male Linux users of all races, genders and backgrounds, historically these events were first named Linux, the word at that time being used in a more generic sense to cover the entire spectrum of what is now variously called the Red Hat, SuSE or Debian community.
By the late '80s and early '90s, as many of the actual participants had grown older, moved on to other issues or passed away, this led to misunderstandings as to who had actually participated in the Stallmanwall riots, who had actually organized the subsequent demonstrations, marches and memorials and who had been members of early activist organizations such as the Linux Liberation Front and Linux Activists Alliance.
But eventually the language caught up with the reality of the community and the names have become more accurate and inclusive, though these changes met with initial resistance from some in their own communities who were unaware of the actual historical facts. Changing first to Linux and BSD, today most are called GNU/Linux/X11/KDE/GNOME/Mozilla/gcc (GLXKGMg) Pride Parades. But only by the sort of geeks even the other geeks don't want to hang out with.
Remember: just because you have a personal coding output of zero doesn't mean that you can't take full credit for the programming genius of others for a lifestyle of Slashdot, caffeine and masturbation.
And believe me, you haven't lived until you've seen twenty Linux geeks clad only in silver jockstraps.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Linux_Pride [uncyclopedia.org]
Desktop? (Score:2, Informative)
Downright true: where are the OEMs? (Score:2)
Next slashdot article (Score:2)
Its really that easy to make your own article to submit to slashdot.
There is no "Linux operating system" (Score:2)
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What Linux isn't is a PC platform. MacOS and Windows are PC platforms, NOT mainly because of their GUIs are standardized (in fact, they shift in usually understandable ways). Its because you can learn to program complex applications on W
Re:The sad thing is . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time someone mentions blue screens, the Microsoft guys say "Oh, XP is stable for me, it never crashes!". Yet they still mention this "compile from source" which is so 1998.
Most of the applications I use today are available in one of the Debian or Ubuntu repositories, so a simple click in synaptic or adept will install it for me, including all the necessary libraries. I have also a few other apps, such as Google Earth for instance, that aren't under the repositories, but it has been a long time since I had to compile anything.
You Microsoft guys have no idea how complicated is getting software for Windows if you are a newbie. You just think it's easy because you are so familiar with the whole thing. Getting winamp or nero or whatever application you want is very easy if you know which app you need and where to get it. But show me where is the centralized application install function in XP, like Adept or Synaptic in Linux. Where is the simple way to look for a software to install, searching by category? I need a software to edit a video or to manage a network or to do scientific calculations, where is the simple interface where I can find it and install it with a few mouse clicks? Without knowing beforehand the name of the software? Let's face it, the closest equivalent to Synaptic or Adept in XP is Google!
Besides, even when I had to compile stuff in the past, it was much simpler to type "./configure; make; make install" in a console than trying to solve all those "missing vbrun.dll" problems one often got when trying to install software in MS-Windows. I may be out of date myself here, because it has been a long time since I did this, but I remember that even in 1998 automake/autorun were easier to use than solving all the incompatibility problems between windows applications and DLLs.
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And where's the central repository of knowledge that tells me what's the best text editor of the 9,000 avail
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I've said it before in these discussions, and I'll say it again (because repeating yourself is a sign of stupidity), the problem that
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After a virus scare, and finding a crapload of spyware installed, a friend of mine became very interested in linux.
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I think you've misunderstood. It's actually not that people want to force CLI on you or even that they think it's easier... Giving clear, unambiguous and succinct instructions for a GUI is often impossible and almost always significantly more laborous than giving the same advice for CLI. Try it and you'll see.
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Look, I know you're used to Windows which comes with a bare-bones text editor, a bloated pos for a media player, and no dedicated burning software, but Linux distros tend to come with decent programs to do all those things. If you're willing to use whatever some random guy uses too, then why not just stick with the perfectly usable def
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And where's the central repository of knowledge that tells me what's the best text editor of the 9,000 available for Linux?
Who cares? Why do you need the best, rather than just one that does the job? And who defines "best", anyway?
Just read the descriptions, pick one that sounds like it might work for you, install it, and see if it does the job. If so, great. If not, pick another. Of course, if you have someone around that already understands the pros and cons, ask, but all of the packages in the
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There isn't a "best text editor" for Linux. Which text editor is best is a function of your personal tastes, the specific uses you have for it, and other things. Same, really, as on Windows (though the options are different.) No "central repository of knowledge" exists for either, you've got to figure out what works for you. There's lots of good resources on the net to find out about t
Re:The sad thing is . . . (Score:4, Funny)
Which, of course, runs Linux.
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With windows, I can distribute an app as a zip file, confident it will run without adjustment on a majority of windows systems. The
The thing i
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Rely ONLY on Clib (Xlib, and OGL). (and CLib can be supplied with the app as well).
Voila. "Click and run" application. Include a png icon for the application as well.
If you follow these rules, your application will be very portable. Even running with emulators such as QEMU to target SPARCs, etc.
Now, build your application tre
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if configure fails it'll still try to make it
(and offcorse want the program to end in the your PATH)
best thing tho is to first read README INSTALL and then
So you can consult them first before making the thing
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Now, for the sake of argument lets say the do include such a list that is somewhat manageable. Manageable meaning that it's not every piece of software made. Most software for Windows is not open source, therefore they would need to integrate some software purchase scenario within Windows to connect to the software maker, download th
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Download.com (Score:2)
Download.com. will serve as an example. I could as easily have chosen a half-dozen others.
Programs neatly sorted in categories. Independent editorial reviews. User reviews. Screenshots. Tutorials. Lice
Re: The sad thing is . . . (Score:2)
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for as "rare" as it is, I seem to keep running into software that's not in my distro (very common) (SUSE 10). Stuff like Analog, postfix.admin, etc... and invariably, when i go to install these apps by tarball, they require that the programs that I do have in my repository be configured in a different way than SUSE configures them.
bah.
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MS may have a website similar to gentoo-portage, but once the software is found, for every case in the MS instance, I must then go manually either download the software from the vendor or have a CD snail-mailed to me (how quaint) and this is the epitomy of the MS distribution chain. On Gentoo, for nearly every case, I simply:
emerge --searchdesc what-am
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If you are writing software that isn't going to be included and packaged for you by a distribution, then you can just use Autopackage [autopackage.org] to create a single distro-agnostic binary with its own built in installer. Autopackage even provides lib
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The problem from my perspective, however, is that not only do people who want to use my stuff now have to download it, but also autopackage.
I'd love for that to become a standard, but it's not. It's a shame.
What would be REALLY cool is an app that produced a distro specific package based on source. I think that's the kind of thing that would really help Linux as a distribution platform.
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With windows you're guaranteed binary compatibility on a majority of systems
Because Windows only runs on x86 PeeCee hardware of Pentium III and later vintage. And everyone's running the same distribution (Windows XP). OK - maybe two distros, XP and 2003 Slow-Down-My-Server-To-A-Crawl Edition(TM).
/me ducks.
Re:The sad thing is . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
For you or for users? Installing and maintaining software that is packaged for distributions can be easier than it is on Windows, and so much software has been packaged for Debian and Ubuntu that I feel the claim that "software installation and maintenance is easier on Debian than on Windows (or OS X)" is justified. On the other hand, packaging software for various distros can put an enormous burden on the developers.
Going the other way, providing software that can be installed on many different Linux distributions is a piece of cake for the developer. As long as you stick to a few sensible conventions (like not assuming things that tend not to be true across distros), users should be able to install your program without too much trouble, once they have all the necessary dependencies in place. Of course, this effort might still be too much for would-be users.
Other alternatives are targetting only a select few distributions (see also my other post about "the Linux OS" not existing), and/or leaving the packaging in the hands of the distributors - arguably, it is their job. Also, it's not uncommon for users to post step by step instructions or even creating binary packages for installing software on distributions that don't include that software.
``With windows you're guaranteed binary compatibility on a majority of systems''
Yes, but this comes with a hefty price tag. For example, binary compatibility will be broken the moment another hardware architecture comes along (AMD64, anyone?). It's entirely possible that this has kept PCs from evolving past x86 for so long - with actual drawbacks; various other architectures have been more performant, more affordable, etc. at various points in time. And that's just the hardware side; I'm sure many people can point out bugs and vulnerabilities that have persisted because of the need to maintain binary compatibility with some flawed earlier system.
Also, binary compatibility isn't completely achieved on Windows, either. Think of DLL Hell, for example.
``with Linux, it's pretty much expected that your users are advanced enough to be able to compile from source.''
Which doesn't have to be very advanced at all. For a lot of software, a single command suffices; often, it's the familiar
Also, if a user wants to run your software on an operating system that you do not support, is it your fault or theirs if the installation isn't easy? With the source, at least they _can_ make it work.
``Ironically, Windows with mingw et. al. seems to be a more hospitable environment toward deployment of open-source software than "Linux" is.''
Some companies (at least Google) actually develop their software against winelib, and then create a Windows binary that works on Windows and any x86 Linux distro with Wine installed. Although I dread the ugliness of win32 programs on Linux, it does solve the binary compatibility problem.
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I'm talking about for me, the developer, deploying for all the distros under the Linux umbrella is much more difficult than it is to deploy on Windows or FreeBSD.
It's funny that whenever anyone brings this up, they get attacked, but really what developers want to concentrate on is writing code that's interesting to them. I can do that on any platform. I do that on Windows now because it's just so easy to s
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Yes. And that's exactly because there are all these "distros under the Linux umbrella". I feel people need to realize that these are really different operating systems, otherwise we keep getting stuck in things like "Linux doesn't have $nice_property, because I know this one distro that doesn't have it". I feel, but this _is_ my personal opinio
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Again, easier for you... For the user this approach means tens or hundreds of applications that have their own update methods (some need to be started, some want you to click 'update' somewhere, etc.) with different UIs for the updating. It also means security implications as the user now has X additional programs that are connected to the internet.
Stand-alone installers have some good properties compared to package manageme
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Yes, I can see how the act of simply starting the program is more complex for the user. Actually most programs today on Windows check for updates and / or install them themselves. Acrobat does this, Firefox does this, Windows itself does this.
It also means security implica
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Good! Does the installer ask any questions? If so, does it explain what the questions mean, what the consequences of each answer are, and what answer one should pick?
``Deploying updates is even easier; it happens whenever they run the application.''
Ooh, spyware! Or, at least, it could be...if it's closed source and it connects to your website, without me telling it to, how do I know it's only checking for updates?
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Yes, it says do you want to Install? If they click no, nothing happens. If they click yes, the application downloads, installs and runs. No options.
Ooh, spyware! Or, at least, it could be...if it's closed source and it connects to your website, without me telling it to, how do I know it's only checking for updates?
Updates need to be signed b
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That's because the 286 -> 386 change was within the same architecture. Parent is talking about nontrivial architecture changes (such as from x86 to PPC or the like).
My application in particular will also run just fine on 64 bit, without any effort on my part.
Erm... "on 64-bit?" Meaning, your 32-bit application runs on a 64-bit chip with 32-bit emulation/native support? Ge
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Nope. because he specifically said moving from 32 bit to 64 bit ("AMD64 anyone?").
Erm... "on 64-bit?" Meaning, your 32-bit application runs on a 64-bit chip with 32-bit emulation/native support? Gee gosh!
Actually no. See, my app is built on the
compile from source (Score:2)
The 'compile from source' is what I like about Gentoo. I ran Linux for quite some before moving to Gentoo, and when it came time to install those non-distro rpms, it was frequently a crap-shoot. Try the rpm, learn about a missing dependency. Grab that, learn about its missing dependency, maybe up-level from distro standard. Grab this, find out that it doesn't play well with my distro, etc. I got quite a few non-distro things installed from rpm, but there were things that didn't, an
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What FreeBSD gets right that Gentoo really doesn't focus on is binary compatibility, such that I can download a package for a specific release of FreeBSD that's the same as if I had compiled the port with default settings. I'm sure Gentoo will get there someday.
Re:The really really sad thing is . . . (Score:2)
Mainly because when you distribute for Windows you know you're normally going to have administrator access to the machine and can use any registry key and installation directory you want as long as it's obfuscated enough to miss other apps through sheer luck. Of course those are all just bad assumptions and Microsoft tells you not to expect such access, but 99% of the developers seem to write with that level of access in mind. I've had numer
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As usual, the existence and relative success of OS X negates such claims.
Automatic package managers + huge repository seem nice at first. Until you realize there are Zero independant application developers offering great stuff for your OS, because the distro differences and their PMs continually massaging/tossing around system components have scared off those types of developers. Want your stuff to ins
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Eh? Windows runs on watches, Playstations, and Powermacs these days? And as for "if you have the choice, which would you pick?" I'd say Windows on the desktop, perhaps, but nowhere else; Linux is ok anywhere (but that's only because "the Linux OS" doesn't exist: I'd like a GUI on my PDA, but not on my router).
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But what I wanted to say was an example of an averange Joe - he walks into a computer store to buy a new PC.. And what OS does he get/request?
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I do. Surprise!
It's just that about 98% of people I see on the (Linux support/talk) forums are real linux zealots. They won't use anything with closed source. They want to "kill" Ms, etc, etc. So everytime I see "Linux ready for desktop", "Linux agains MS" I write posts like that.
Yes, I do, because of the reasons stated above. :)
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They won't use anything with closed source.
So what about those who use closed source apps on Linux?