Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 Review 194
Michael McPherson
sent in a link to Nicholas Petreley's
Glowing review of Caldera
that appears in the current issue of LinuxWorld. Talks about
the windows based install program and a lot more.
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Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 Review
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How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? "That's a known problem... don't worry about it."
(NPetreley): Looks like I was wrong. (Score:1)
Looks like I was wrong about the ld.so issue - it is a feature of ld.so that was added at version 1.9.8. (Many thanks to the readers who alerted me to this). That means this potential trap is not unique to Caldera.
-Nicholas Petreley
AUUUGGGHHH!!!! (Score:1)
But they are lazy. This is why they use Windows instead of Unix. Unix may be free, but Windows is easy. You're not going to change people.
And you;'re a newbie for what? a few weeks, maybe a month? I am in favor of it being newbie-accessable, I am NOT, however, in favor of it being dumbed down soo much that the newbie effectively STAYS a newbie for the duration.
You just try to teach an adult TECHNOPHOBE how to use Unix. Or windows for that matter. People aren't willing to change no matter how much money and how much effort they have to go through not to change. This is why diet pills and excercise gimmicks have been sold for 50 years.
If you want to progress beyond newbie, that is YOUR choice, forcing a stubborn lazy person that doesn't give a rats ass to learn will make the user choose to stick with Windows. Try it.
Well...eh...I don't think people ARE idiots...and I believe those that call themselves idiots have some serious issues to work out.
Some people are idiots. Other people are lazy. Others just see no reason they should change from something that works to something that is harder to use. They don't care if it costs them $100 bucks, they don't care if it makes Bill Gates richer, why should they. They just want to send and receive email and play video games. They don't care about perl scripts, piping, telnet capabilities, etc. Hey - maybe that's why none of that stuff is in Windows, ya think?
A perfect system does nt, and WILL NOT exist. That is a plain and simple FACT.
A blind assertion carries no weight.
Why? Name a reason. The reason it will never exist with Windows is that there needs to be an artifical reason to upgrade all the time. The reason it can happen with Linux is the source code can be modified by anybody that sees a need to. Linux scales from a 386 all the way up to a Beowulf supercomputer, tell me this isn't closer to a perfect system than Windows 95 or NT.
As for Windows, Linux isn't Windows.
Who said it was? I'm just advocating that we should take the ideas that make Windows work and put them in Linux. This won't hurt Linux in any way whatsoever. The Not Invented Here syndrome is STUPID and has no place in making a technically complete system accessible to everyone.
Drop the idealism. Work with what you've got, not what you wish you had. The people in this society are what you have to design for, not the people that you wish you had in society. We live in a nation where we couldn't convince people to change to the METRIC system for god sakes, you think we can change them from Windows to Linux without giving them a similar interface and making the install easy? You're delusional.
My problem with reviews (Score:3)
Here's what I think:
Slackware is the most fun. Instead of wasting time watching TV nights, you can come home, compile stuff, write all kinds of nifty scripts of your own to do system administration tasks, and so forth and so on. I had a blast for years running Slackware 2.0 all the way up through 3.0, learned something new about a Linux tool every night, and it made me feel as though I was working on one of those venerable old '80s Unix workstations. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, I got a job and school got more intense, and suddenly I didn't have the time to keep it up.
So, I switched to Red Hat 5.0 for the package management and supposed "ease of maintenance". Red Hat's installer is niftier than Slackware's, but once I got going, I discovered that Red Hat has some serious problems and limitations: for some reason, their gcc setup won't compile anything out of the box; better to download and install your own gcc configuration. Red Hat also somehow manages to make it difficult to install anything other than a Red Hat RPM -- getting a downloaded copy of Netscape to run under Red Hat can be a challenge, where it was always easy to do such things with Slackware. In the end, I became frustrated with Red Hat and decided that it was fine for those that didn't want to bang on their systems at all, but for those that did, there was just too much "search and repair" to do.
Then, I switched to Debian 1.x and later, 2.0. Debian was very like Slackware in some ways. During install, I could choose a large number of packages in a very specific way and the dependencies worked well. The package manager is the best, in my opinion, but is also a little harder to work with at first. There were no real problems, and on the whole, Debian is a solid (if slightly personality-less) distribution, and I was fine with it. The amount of software packaged for Debian is incredible, and I preferred the Debian tools to the graphic-based Red Hat tools. Still, Debian just isn't exciting for some reason; it's not shiny metal, more like concrete: strong but uninteresting. This is silly and personal, of course, but it's how I felt. I still used it, though, since I didn't want to go back to Red Hat and didn't feel that I had the time to use Slackware.
Then, someone gave me a free copy of OpenLinux 1.3, and I thought "may as well" and backed up my Debian installation on 8mm and gave OpenLinux a shot. What a system! Install, especially when dealing with odd devices, is better than any of the others (including Red Hat), and is smooth and fast, without a single reboot from the time you insert the floppy to the time you start KDE, which is included and installed for you. It was the first time that a distribution installer had been able to figure out support for both of my printers using LPD and ghostscript, and install both a raw and a PostScript buffer for each, with a filter to automatically route most files to the correct spool. The KDE desktop was preconfigured and included icons for Netscape, BRU, and a bunch of other included applications. Experimenting has led me to believe that the gcc installation is the best of any of the distributions I've tried; nearly everything compiles out of the box. Even the installed threads implementation works, which is amazing for a libc5-based distro. All of the tools were the very latest; I found that I could install a 2.2 kernel, compile, and install it right away without breaking its "Changes" file dependencies or downloading other software.
What am I saying?
I've tried the big four, and of them, I prefer Slackware and OpenLinux. I'm still using OpenLinux 1.3 now, and am seriously considering buying 2.2, though I've also toyed with the idea of going back to Slackware with 4.0.
I've heard lots of people just dismiss OpenLinux as a dying, boring distribution, not worth anybody's time, but I think that what people miss is that OpenLinux has taken the time to get the guts right and make the "unintersting" stuff work (as has Debian), and has then gone the extra distance by including KDE and so forth. In my opinion, it's the most corporate-safe of them all. OpenLinux is quality (which Red Hat sometimes lacks) coupled with intuitiveness (which Debian sometimes lacks) and correctness (which Slackware sometimes lacks). It's the only distribution in my opinion which is similar in quality to commercial Unixes.
I am not a Caldera employee. No, I don't make my own distro. *sigh*
LIBC5 Glibc6 (Score:1)
I did just this when manually upgrading Redhat 4.2. I did this and put glibc2 in
openlinux 2.2 download? (Score:1)
Alex Bischoff
---
cool (Score:1)
Ah well, you live and you learn.
RE:om test (Score:1)
/dev/cua0 (Score:1)
3d (Score:1)
Try debian (Score:1)
- better package manager: apt is pretty damned amazing. apt-get install <package> and you're set. While ports might be as good as that, apt is not inferior in any way.
- KDE: currently depends on a non-free Qt. Once Qt 2.0 goes gold, it can be included in main, because the QPL meets the requirements of the DFSG, but until then it stays in contrib and non-free.
- more stable: I've never seen anyone show me any sort of evidence either way. When you're dealing with Linux and FreeBSD on PC-style hardware, it is sort of a function of the crap hardware (or not), now isn't it?
FreeBSD may be good, but my pick is Debian. Try both.StarOffice with glibc2.1? (Score:1)
WOW!!! (Score:1)
I have to modify the
How about the Chimpanzee test? (Score:1)
Would they have it done in an hour, a day, a week?
RPM: caldera, suse, redhat (Score:1)
Woah (Score:1)
Changing the format of ldconfig and
-W.W.
AUUUGGGHHH!!!! (Score:1)
(This is in reaction to several earlier posts)
I am very much annoyed now. Why does it seem like EVERYBODY equates
User Friendly == Newbie Friendly
Where
Newbie == Idiot
User Friendly is first, and foremost, a SUBJECTIVE term. It is NOT quantifiable, it CANNOT be measured.
Second, newbie friendliness is only marginally valuable. You're only a newbie for so long, but you're a user forever. (well...if you use it that long
Third, these "user friendly" tools can become crutches that prevent real learning about the system.
My point? Stop trying to make it so brain-dead a trained monkey could operate it! START trying to make it so simple a reasonably intelligent human being could operate it.
There is a LOT more to human-computer interaction than just 'pretty pictures' and 'cute widgets'.
Something to remember...
If you tell somone s/he is an idiot over and over and over, s/he is likely to start believing you.
AUUUGGGHHH!!!! (Score:1)
My point? Stop trying to make it so brain-dead a trained monkey could operate it! START trying to make it so simple a reasonably intelligent human being could operate it.
Why?
(bold used to separate my qords from yours)
Because people AREN'T trained monkies.
Your reasoning is spurious. There is NO reason not to make an interface simple to the "newbie".
And you;'re a newbie for what? a few weeks, maybe a month? I am in favor of it being newbie-accessable, I am NOT, however, in favor of it being dumbed down soo much that the newbie effectively STAYS a newbie for the duration.
There is NO reason not to make it accessible to the idiot.
Well...eh...I don't think people ARE idiots...and I believe those that call themselves idiots have some serious issues to work out.
(YES, I
As for the rest of your little rant...
A perfect system does nt, and WILL NOT exist. That is a plain and simple FACT.
As for Windows, Linux isn't Windows.
Dammit, don't be a snob (Score:1)
I'll repeat, there is more to human-computer interaction than 'pretty pictures' and 'cute widgets'.
Yes, to a POWER USER who is the traditional user to Unix.
No, not so. In fact, that mentality is what bugged me enough to post in the first place. There is a LOT more it than icons and widgets.
Here, from www.Iarchitect.com
We begin with the system requirements and a few basic rules:
Software must assist the user perform a task, not become a task in itself
Software must not make the user feel stupid
Software must not make the computer appear to be stupid
I think that helps explain my stance.
Before you say it, I am NOT anti-GUI.
(I rather quite enjoy X, ad the assorted WMs available (I've tried almost every wm I could get my hands on))
OpenLinux 2.2? (Score:1)
AFAIK it will ship the week of April 26th.
TedC
They fixed the lame manual (Score:1)
TedC
cool (Score:1)
StarOffice with glibc2.1? (Score:1)
RE:StarOffice with glibc2.1? (Score:1)
SO5.0 is libc6, not libc5. It is dynamically linked.
The linker from libc2.1 will not load the libraries from 2.0
Solution which came up on linux-kernel: if you have the linker somewhere else, you can execute it by:
ld-whatever (binary name). I'm going to try that.
I'm with you (Score:1)
He is getting better, I have not had a repair call in three weeks now...have not gotten one from mom since the split.
RE: What's wrong with idiot friendly? (Score:1)
Why shouldn't we have a system that is all of the following?
It seems to me that Windows falls short of the mark on 4, maybe 5 of these criteria. When Linux is genuinely "any-user-friendly", it will have a much clearer and more noticeable advantage over Windows.
As long as the system is easy to use at any level of experience, and allows, but does not require the user to learn anything (s)he might want to about the system, who can possibly have a problem with that? I, for one, don't.
RE: What's wrong with idiot friendly?(again) (Score:1)
However for point #2 - the incentive to progress from stage to stage comes from a thirst for knowledge. And that's exactly the way it should be.
There will be people who don't want to know how their computer system works, they will just be glad that it does. There will be others that do want to know how their system works.
(sorry, couldn't resistIf a particular user does not want to learn how some function of his system works, but is forced to do so by an inadequacy in the system, he may learn something, but he won't learn it willingly or well. He'll tinker with it and will almost certainly hit problems because of his lack of knowledge. Maybe he'll work it out, maybe he won't, but he won't enjoy the experience.
(You can lead a horse to water...)
OTOH, if he does not need to learn about that function, because the system can adequately handle it for him, he will leave it alone and it will continue to function properly.
With Linux, it is always possible to get stuck into learning how the system hangs together. It is only useful (and fun) if you want to, otherwise it is downright annoying.
And I don't believe that any-user-friendliness is some sort of unattainable Holy Grail. Linux is almost there already. With the vast diversity and configurability exhibited across different distributions, there should be at least one combination of distribution, apps, UI and configuration that a user will be able to work with easily.
My problem with reviews (Score:1)
Yes, I belive this was a good review. But I'm a Debian user who hasn't tried any other disributions that is interested in how they compare. Will we ever see a good objective review without any bias from the reviewers background? I doubt it. Will it be of any use if it were made? Probably not. What's my point? I have no clue, except that it would be nice to see a fair review of linux or a linux distribution compared against all the other operating systems and distributions to know what should be fixed without the typical pro-linux or pro-ms or pro-bsd or pro-whatever bias.
StarOffice with glibc2.1? (Score:1)
It should be on http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/libc.html but
/jarek
RPM: caldera, suse, redhat (Score:1)
Try debian (Score:1)
Hmm, might be true. But does it matter? Debian don't want to distribute KDE because it would be illegal for them. (Even if it's no risk) But I ran KDE until GNOME 1.0, installed it from deb's in something like 1.5 minutes and it works just fine in Debian.
So if anyone wants to run KDE in Debian there is no problem att all to do so.
EIT's EasyLinux? (Score:1)
Debian? (Score:2)
But here might be some problem I just have not encountered? I really don't know much about this and I've never had a reason to look into it. It has just always worked.
AUUUGGGHHH!!!! (Score:1)
That's because the metric system is a tool of the devil....duh!
Nobody's mentioned COAS yet... (Score:2)
It's been in quiet development for at least a year now, Linux Journal claims it's going to be modular, GUI based & vi-compatible, it looks like the only serious competitor to Linuxconf, and it fills the software hole (user friendly & newbie friendly system configuration) that Linux needs most desperately.
Linux is currently at a state where any PC or Mac user could switch to and use it, as long as they had some guru to log in as root whenever mucking around in
A couple more things I'd like to have cleared up:
Is COAS under the GPL like they said it would be? What non-free software (if any) is on the Caldera 2.2 CDs?
Petreley mentions having to muck about with
The best solution, of course, would be if Corel recompiled WP8 (or hurried up on their 2000 product) so I could ditch libc5 compatibility entirely.
Tetris! (Score:1)
messed around with Slackware's installation script
to make it work, but I never did anything with it.
I'm glad to see this happen in a released
distribution though... it's SO much better than
the annoying "Why Win9x is great" messages in
certain other OS install programs.
cool (Score:1)
As for the second half of the post... Windows.
amazing! (Score:1)
why?
1. it installs from windows directly. smart move. i doubt they're as open with their install program as debian and redhat are (which is fine, it's their choice). be nice if the other distributions added a gpl workalike, but then hopefully win9x will go away...
2. tetris. *brilliant* i can see hardware benchmarks now: this new pentium iii cthulu chip is so fast i ony got through 5 levels of tetris during a full caldera linux install. it doesn't just answer the "hard to install" complaint, it takes it out back and shoots it.
3. in general it sounds very "innovative." while bill gates is making innovative a dirty word, caldera has shown it's alive and well in the linux world, and i hope the other distributions can show that innovation is constuctive - not something you use to whallop your cometitors with.
please don't take this in a negative way, but caldera seems a little less open then redhat and debian wrt code they write. even so they've contributed a large amount to the community. i wish them luck and i hope the other distributions see openlinux 2.2 as a constructive challenge. maybe redhat can get xbill going for their distribution.
better test (Score:1)
Dammit, don't be a snob (Score:1)
Nobody's mentioned COAS yet... (Score:1)
From ftp://ftp.coas.org/pub/FAQ [coas.org]
Q - What license will be used for the release of COAS?
Bootup in a window? How? (Score:1)
(with reference to a RedHat box), some dinky X server could be started, but until that stage,
what? Has anyone seen this beast? is it just a xterm with scrolling or some KDE app?
Tetris! (Score:1)
I know they refer to it as a tetris game, but I don't remember actually seeing a title on the screen. So they can get away with creating a game that doesn't have its own name because it's embedded in another program.
I remember at LinuxWorld Expo when Caldera was demonstrating the GUI OpenLinux install, they got to the tetris game, and the audience exploded into applause louder than when the guy was handing out free software.
Mom test (Score:1)
Hopefully, this will be user-friendly enough to attract people from the Windows world. The more user-friendly the install process becomes, the greater the mainstream acceptance for Linux...(and that's what we need for support from hardware manufacturers and software companies!
You missed the point. (Score:1)
They also put the System Policy Editor, Windows Batch Setup, and other such goodies the Win95/98 cd. They don't except a user to use them. They expect an admin to use them.
WOW!!! (Score:1)
I've installed RedHat 5.9 last week (since
then it has been removed because of the
frequent core dumps)
Hopefully they'll fix that before the release.
As for colors on the console. The boot is the
only place. They still forget to put colors
or the listing of files. We still have to had
it in a scripts.
cool (Score:1)
You don't know what the heck you are talking
about.
I have been using just about every versions that
came around of Netscape for posting and I could
be on a newsgroup for hours and I don't recall
it crashing. I had problem at one time with
the ISP's fix IP which would send netscape
in deep space (and NcFTP as well) but it wasn't
due to Linux or Netscape or NcFTP.
I've tried KDE's news program. It works well
even though I prefer Netscape.
Some people swear by GNU.
There are lots of em.
And at least under Linux it doesn't Melissa you.
"Metric System == tool of the devil" from Simpsons (Score:1)
Caldera's NON-Support!! (Score:1)
This should be a FAQ.
Games on Linux (Score:1)
Speed is not really the issue with games on Linux. Operating system overheads are small enough not to matter. What does matter is the scheduling policy; "fair" schedulers like those used in Linux are not ideal; rate-based schedulers are much better for "multimedia" applications.
On Windows, games can tell the operating system to get out of the way and not interrupt them while they are running. On a single-user system this is fine. On Windows NT, games can do a similar thing and, mostly, this works. There's no reason why this can't be implemented on Linux; several projects have already done so.
Of course, the question then becomes "what happens when I want to run two or more of these applications at the same time"; a new design of operating system [cam.ac.uk] is required to support this.
openlinux 2.2 download? (Score:1)
There's always cheapbytes.com...
cool (Score:1)
like SuSE? No, like HPUX. (Score:1)
dselect (Score:1)
horrible. With my first installation of Debian, I
tried dselect for about a minute before deciding
it was too hard. I then spent about a month
manually installing packages by downloading them
and using dpkg. I then installed Debian on another
computer. I spent two minutes reading the dselect
instructions and then have found dselect easy. The
main problem is that I expected enter to select a
package, and not go back. Apt fixes all this of course.
Re:apt (Score:1)
that is currently 'stable'. Apt and gnome-apt are
the newer equivalents of dselect.
A good attempt at fixing Linux's worst problem. (Score:1)
The first and possibly biggest reason is the lack of ANY decent installer or config tool (and no, I don't believe there is a SINGLE good one out there). Caldera's Windows based installer is a good attempt at widening Linux's appeal but runs the risk of alienating the diehard Linux-only crowd. GNOME is coming along nicely on the config front but it needs HELP.
The second part of the problem just compounds everything. The almost total lack of support from the hardware front for Linux makes the job of writing an installer harder (can't autodetect hardware that doesn't work with Linux) and keeps our beloved OSS a good way behind what we are able to support. (There have been a few good signs recently, such as Intel's investment in Red Hat, etc., but we've still got a LONG way to go.)
With a GOOD AND COMPLETE installer and config tool set and hardware support as wide as that of Windows, I see nothing but success in Linux's future. Until then...
I should have said KDE & GNOME (Score:1)
WOW!!! (Score:1)
You mean like S.u.S.E. 6.0 ??
I'm so impressed!!
"Keep working at it... you will either succeed, or become an expert."
AUUUGGGHHH!!!! (Score:1)
Unfortunately, windows does by not providing the scripting tools as a part of the OS (and therefore, obviously not easy enough for me). Linux distributions do this by not providing tools to build scripts for common tasks. I remember Windows 3.x had "Windows recorder" (I think it was called).
I don't know exactly what would be appropriate for this, but a GUI app with modules for playing with files from various apps would be useful.
Set your priorities strait. (Score:1)
Caldera provide a NEWBIE form of linux (Score:2)
first caldera is THE distro to Lure 9X users away from their over indulagance in hardware
I managed to get my whole house to go over to it a DirectX programer and a VB (doodler not a programer) and that says something why because they wanted to use something to get work done and Caldera has this and thats it !
it works it dosnt want you to recompile the kernal it dosnt want you to edit
redhat if for performace and tweaks caldera is not ok thats my Veiw anyway
HAVE FUN install it on the office machine and watch people gwap !!!
cool (Score:1)
cool (Score:1)
MATLAB. What I really want to run now is MATLAB. I know there's MATLAB for Linux, but I don't have it (lame, I know), and I don't think there's a student version for Linux either.
Decent web browser. I think Netscape is horrendous and I don't want to switch back to that. Changing from Netscape to IE improved my computing quality of life more than any other change I remember.
MS Word. WPS8 for Linux still screws up the formating of word documents.
Development environment with nice IDE i.e. something that compares with MS visual studio. In fact, when I was developing a program for unix-systems, I would develop it in Visual studio,then ftp it over and compile it with gcc.
And of course games....
WOW!!! (Score:1)
cool (Score:1)
I've used SO5 a lot for compatiblity with people who used it (don't as me why they use it, i think its ugly and silly myself).
but anyway, use SO5 for MS office compatibility.
Try debian (Score:1)
*BSD's hardware support is behind linux's.
And you are generally correct, the BSD 4.4 light varients tend to be slightly more stable. You can really bag the fuck out of a BSD system.
Can with linux to, but BSD handles it a little better.
LIBC5 Glibc6 (Score:1)
Ive been using linux longer then him, and I can say i've never had a problem with glibc2 stuff, cept compiling old libc5 code. He claims he has but lying. Essentially, for some things libc5 *might* be more stable.
Nobody's mentioned COAS yet... (Score:1)
COAS IS GPL
It is an open project just like any other OpenSource software. Other distributors are welcome to use it.
If there is one thing holding other distributors like SuSE back, it is their proprietary administration programs (e.g. YaST in the case of SuSE).
KDE (Score:1)
I am installing it and I see KDE.
It is installed and rebooting and I see KDE.
LILO goes away and I see KDE.
KDM instead of console and I did not want it nor
select any options to have it run. Heck, I did
not even get a list of packages to choose from.
only three options: minimal, normal and a full install.
I went back three times to see what the
fourth, no-name, check box was, and to see if
I could maybe have some control over what I got
on my machine. Kinda sucks when you loose control
just so that it can be easier to isntall for others.
Oh, well though. I guess that is just the way it must be. Or not?
Set your priorities straight (Score:1)
Please no flames about "If they can't install we don't want them running Linux" since the point of this distribution is expanding Linux to more of a non-hacker audience.
OpenLinux 2.2? (Score:1)
Perhaps 2.2 isn't officially out yet? If I were to look for it, where and what should I look for?
Curious, currently running WinNT, want to tinker more with Linux, Caldera's OpenLinux looks like an excellent place to start. Any clues, anyone?
AS
Sounds decent... (Score:1)
I've noticed that the distributions are starting to try to make the Linux startup a little more friendly...the forthcoming RedHat 6.0 is going to have color-coded "OK" or "FAILED" for service startup (although it's still in text mode), and from what I've heard, other distros are similar. The author does bring up a certain concern - newbies are going to react negatively when they see a "failed" message on their screen. Mine gripes when it tries to start NFS. No big deal, because I know I don't need NFS, but a newcomer to Linux might not know that.
One thing I noticed is that the author mentions that RedHat went with glibc while the other vendors went with libc5. The thing is that RedHat does install libc5 compatibility libraries. I've got
Maybe I'm old fashioned but... (Score:1)
What the $50 version (of any distrobution) gives you is a cdrom set which alot of people who's only access to the internet currently is a modem (downloading a 500 meg distro at those speeds is almost unfeasible), manual and usually some email or phone based installation tech support.
Highly worth it for a new user or company just starting to check out Linux and doesn't know much more than what they've read about it in P.C. Magazine
Caldera provide a NEWBIE form of linux (Score:1)
As far as OL 2.2's install I believe the expert mode is still CLI based, if not it should give you manual control over the setup and hardware if you dont want to use the autoconfiguration wizards.
Plus just changing the runlevel should give you back your CLI on bootup instead of loading KDM.
2.2 might be desinged to be easier for newbies but it will still be fully functional and powerful for the rest of us.
OpenLinux 2.2? (Score:1)
AUUUGGGHHH!!!! is right.-II (Score:1)
It's true Linux was formed by a community but not everyone in that community thinks alike. Instead it's formed by various groups that have a common demoninator (Linux) but somtimes very different agenda's.
This is seen very easily in the different distributions, ranging from Debian or SUSE (I forget which one but they only want GNU compatible free software in it without any commercial code at all), to RedHat trying to make screaming easy to install leading edge distributions, to Caldera concentrating on ease of use, more applications to bring Linux into corporation use and dont care if its open source or closed binarys as long as it works to many other distro's.
While one or two groups and/or distributions might try to make Linux easier to use for the newbie, others concentrate on being super configurable and making the user learn every little niche of the OS like Slackware does.
My point here is that this argument along with most big arguments that happen in the Linux community like KDE vs Gnome etc, are pointless.
While there will allways be people and groups who think differently, there will also be a version of Linux or a distribution that matches our agenda or needs.
Making a "version" of Linux more user or newbie friendly doesn't change or hurt Linux itself in the overall sense, and for those newbies who do start out on an easy distribution allways have the choice to move to a different one later on if they decide they want to learn more about the system and have more control over than the current distro gives them.
"Metric System == tool of the devil" from Simpsons (Score:1)
--
- Sean
AUUUGGGHHH!!!! (Score:1)
Everyone has a different definition of "user friendly." Talk to a tech reporter and he'll define it as being idiot proof. I would define it as being intuitive and having a consistant user interfaces. It has nothing to do with "pretty pictures" and "cute widgets."
Not everyone in the world can be an expert. To expect them to is wrong. To expect to achieve world domination for experts only is stupid. I definitely see newbie distros as well as guru distros in the future. Just look at the audio market: you can buy "user-friendly" stereos with just volume and tuning knobs, or you can buy the audophile systems that let you control everything. Most people are in the middle.
A friendly distribution that doesn't skimp on the power will allow a newbie to become an expert. But if the newbie is rudely dumped to the command line with no clue as what to do next, he'll dump Linux.
Linux has the chance the be the OS for everyone, newbie and expert alike.
cool (Score:1)
Care to back up that claim? Maybe you have some inside info worth sharing.
Aside from concerns about 3D hardware support I can't see how you could justify that. Carmack's comments have indicated that the ammount of platform specific code is quite small. If that's the case you can expect to see Q3 running faster on Linux than Windows simply as a result of lower OS overhead.
3D Hardware support will certainly improve with the comercial sales of a Linux version of Q3. Looking for Windows-level driver support before a major 3D game has been sold for a platform is not realistic.
-sam
Set your priorities straight (Score:1)
hehe
re: StarOffice with glibc2.1? (Score:1)
Just a guess, though, I haven't seen the distro.
-Tom
Sounds good. (Score:1)
Mom test (Score:1)
maybe that is one of the really good things about linux... by requiring people to log into the system, and hopefully keeping them from logging in as root this can cut down on the damage they can do. On the other hand that is how you learn... I was never all that competent with computers in college when 3 of my neighbors were CS majors (had a problem they just breezed in and fixed it) once I moved on and had to beging fixing my own problems then I really learned how to use my system. Of course now I have started over again at the moron level in linux (I hope this will be the system for a long time).
Mom test (Score:1)
It's good to see a company address the installation issue, though. We're getting close to the newbie/one-button click Linux installation.
Dave
I should have said KDE & GNOME (Score:1)
My problem with these Linux-on-the-desktop discussions are that the Linux community has just recently begun to make a *real* effort to compete with commercial products for the desktop. The goal of the Linux development team was to make an OS that WORKS, the GUI's and ease-of-install has to come next. I wouldn't expect any Linux distribution to be as easy to use as a Mac or a Windows workstation, or as easy to install. Linux needs a little time to mature. Articles like this lead me to believe that it won't be very long. Lets have a little patience and not get carried away with all the media hype.
cool (Score:1)
Mom test (Score:1)
Matt
hey latrell (Score:1)
Set your priorities straight (Score:1)
Matlab -- try Octave (Score:1)
And as for browsers and word processing. If you're not willing to change your browser or your word processor in exchange for the obvious long-term benefits of free software, then forget it. There are many IDEs floating around for Linux, too, but we all know coding is really about editing plain ascii text, and for that, emacs or vi are about as good as it gets.
Disregard AC's venting on /.! (Score:1)
I selected Caldera v1.1 because it was by far the most professional Linux distro on the market at that time. (Heck, it was arguably the *only* professional Linux distro on the market then - RH wasn't really a going concern yet in those days.)
Although I've had minor problems, I have to say I'm impressed enough to seriously consider buying the new 2.2 release. I may also buy the RH 2.2 release when it comes out, but in general, I think Caldera adds a lot of value. (Even Linus admits to using a commercial distro CD to save time and effort when he builds a machine, so streamlined installation has plenty of value to everyone.) I have also recently tried RH5.2, but still prefer Caldera by a bit. I've seldom used Caldera's support, but got decent responses when I did.
I do hope they've done something about their docs, which were deplorable (at least through 1.2) - A Linux manual that doesn't even mention administration, recompiling the kernel (or even bother to mention that you can avoid that in Caldera in most cases by using LISA) really is inadequate.
Let face it folks, there's just not that much difference between modern Linux distros - there's no right or wrong choice here, just a selection of flavors from which to choose! I certainly prefer a Baskin-Robbins Linux OS selection of tasty flavors to the two MS flavors of "tar" and "old dirty socks"...
Is Caldera free? (Score:1)
Like RH, they also bundle commercial, non-freely-distributable software into their boxed sets. (For instance, my understanding is that you cannot legally distribute the StarOffice or WP8 CD, even though both are available for "free" eval downloads on the net.)
cool (Score:1)
OpenSource replacements for these would fill about the last remaining gaps, and if they used open (XML?) file formats as their native formats, people would have a good reason to leave MS apps behind to avoid the upgrade treadmill...
As soon as these gaps are plugged, I'm going to Linux full-time.
I should have said KDE &amp;amp;amp; GNOME (Score:1)
Case in point: I want to load Linux on the Libretto - the only reasonable way to do this is to temporarily transplant the HDD into a desktop machine, do the install, and then reimplant the HDD in the Libretto.
It would be *REALLY* slick if there were an installation option that would defer any hardware-specific mods until the first boot rather than trying to do them as part of the installation process. This is sort of the way Microsoft's OEM OS installs work (ever wonder why that "electronic break the seal" takes so long?), and one of the few things they've done right.
Right on target fella. (Score:1)
You're very right about MS vs.Linux being a war -- when the DoJ gig is up MS will begin spewing FUDdy crap about Linux to the six corners of the universe, buying off any and every Linux developer with big bucks and hitting with lawyers in every way possible. Marketing & PR comprise much of the battle ground in the "business as warfare" metaphor and the stakes in this war are very, very high.
Combine with this the fact that a huge number of middle and upper IS/IT managers in this country have been socking away their retirement bucks in MS and MS-related stocks (whether they know it or not) and you'll begin to grok just how pervasive the resistance against Linux will be. Better check your own portfolio while you're at it, eh? You'd be surprised at the many ways MS and related stocks effect all sorts of markets.
Linux is very strong in its foundations and can withstand "idiot proof" layers on top provided the foundation is not compromised. The biggest technological mistake MS made was to build their OS foundations on top of a GUI (i.e., they considered the GUI more important) and they ended up with a really crappy OS. Linux builds GUIs on top of an exceptionally strong foundation, which is the way to build anything really complex -- the facade is added after the main structure is built, not before.
To sum up my points:
-it's going to get really ugly if the feds and states wimp out and let MS off with a wrist slap for public consumption (while shaking one another's hand all the while -- if you think the feds are going to risk fscking up the economy, you're dreaming;)
-Linux needs to bring into the fold every single living human body it can; this is best done by appealing to all levels of computer users, from newbies to gods, at their own level.
Linux can win this war easily. Indeed, I think it's our war to lose at this point, so remember:
No contribution is so small that anyone can't make one -- all players have effect.
Glibc6 upgrade fest (Score:3)
The big problem is what to do with all the legacy programs which no one in their right mind wants to lose. Perhaps a community-wide Library Upgrade Festival would work, replete with sponsored prizes for those who convert the most code/programs from the old library to the new, etc.
I've noticed that the Slackware folks are moving to make the glibc6 more inclusive in their new 4.0 distribution (3.6 had run-time support for glibc6 compiled programs -- was great as long as you didn't need to compile.) Most of the other distros have already made or seem to be making moves towards glibc6, so it's surely happening. I can't help feeling as though I'm moving from apartment A to apartment B and it's taking 2 years to make the move complete. Ugh.
Another possible solution is to move to dual library cross-compilers as standard issue. There is a fella who put up a website talking about how to do this -- no mean feat, I assure you. This or something similar seems to be Caldera's solution to the problem and it is a viable solution, although there are some nasty traps and pitfalls for the unwary.
Anyway, something has to be done and do I admire Caldera's attempt at a solution, even if it's only a temporary fix to a lasting problem.
Mom test (Score:1)
cool (Score:1)
Games? - Quake, Doom, Descent, CTK not 'nuff? High end relational DBMS? Oracle Server 8 not enough? Office Suites? SO5, WPS8, AW not enough? 3d rendering - Povray not enough (it kicks Bryce and 3dSMAX)? Development tools? gcc (incl. cross compiler for m68k, palm pilot, etc), gas, gdb, perl, compilers for Fortran, Modula-2, Modula-3, Interpretors for Lisp, Prolog - not enough? Connectivity - server? Apache, inetd, telnetd, mountd, nfsd... - not enough? Connectivity - client? Netscape, ftp, Real Audio, Shockwave, Shockwave Flash, tin, slrn, elm, pine, emacs,...
What apps do you need that are not on Linux?
cool (Score:1)
MATLAB - Looks like you're looking for "free beer", not "free speech."
IE4, MS Word, Visual Studio - I use all of these tools at work, and they are inferior to the comparable tools that I have on Linux (Netscape, Emacs/LaTex or SO, emacs and ass'td compilers)
But hey, if NT is stable enough for you, and you don't mind running on a proprietary system, and you don't mind coding to a nonstandard, poorly documented, inconsistent API - all the power to you. You have that choice.
However, my original post was in response to your allegation that Linux did not have the tools that you wanted or needed.
But let's see. Why switch to Linux
Open-Source 'nuff said
Basic servers (telnetd, mountd, apache) included
with standard dist.
Dev tools included with dist.
Interoperability that NT doesn't even come close
to. (Appletalk, Novell, NFS...)
Faster, more stable implementation of MS's own
SMB protocol than NT
Available on a variety of h/w platforms.
More stable - don't try to dispute this. You
will lose.
You're not supporting a company that uses
unethical, illegal marketing strategies.
Linux provides a better performance, more robust, more standard, and more open platform to use or to code on.
Yum, yum (Score:1)
Is Caldera free? (Score:1)