[Taristin]

Originally posted by Kamikaze
One word: Documentation.

Install help documentation is there for a reason.

Didn't help me any. I probably read it wrong though, but when I attempted to do some of the things it said, such operations were invalid...

[kasperl]

the Redhat stuff is clear as crystal, even i can install it.

using it for someting else then the standard apps, (browser, IRC, image editing like PSP, some cool games, office, FTP, all the good stuff), is rather hard.

[Zarax]

I'll try linsux only when it will have something that has not already made better than Microsoft... the way it's going it means most likely i'll never try it...

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]Ehh... What? May I issue some examples?
Microsoft Office: Superseded by OpenOffice.
Internet Explorer: Superseded by Mozilla and Mozilla Firebird.
Outlook Express: Superseded by Mozilla and Mozille Thunderbird.
Windows: Superseded by Linux (in all its lovely variants), and BSD (also in all its variants).

Sorry, what exactly was it that you were claiming Microsoft did better?[/color]

[Zarax]

Everything. linsux and all the other stuff are just apeing Microsoft products.

[IceFire]

And your suggesting that Microsoft developed them without outside influence.   they pretty much developed the whole Office lineup in the first place to stick it to IBM.

Nope sorry, I use Windows because my games are here.  If they were elsewhere I would switch.

[Odyssey]

Originally posted by Zarax
Everything. linsux and all the other stuff are just apeing Microsoft products.

[color=cc9900]No, they only made it look like Microsoft's products, to help people transfer. And functionality is a variable determined by what the user wants, not what a company makes, so you can expect that to be roughly equal in anything.[/color]

[kasperl]

erm, memory management? (a 384MB swap partition instead of at least a gig)

boot time? (2 minutes (with bootloader) instead of five)

stabiltity(not a crash within all the time i used it, compared to 3 a day under win98SE)

btw, did you ever notice that sysreqs for linux ports of stuff are always half of that of the windows version?

[Zarax]

Wow, you just reached Windows 3.1 level! something to be proud of! It's just that we are in 2003... Anyways, it will always remain way behind in compatibility and feature level... And about crashes... They never been a problem for me... once a week for 95/98/me, and never had since 2000/xp.

[kasperl]

well, i am using win98SE for a few years now (3 reformats), i sued win3.11 for a year or 2, and i learned DOS when i was 6.

dos, never crashed, win3.11, i took it down once or twice, and 98SE is going down 3 times a day. linux, never, ever, crashed.
also, the security features in linux seem a lot better, and all the sttings are easier to find. and, a major feature, it is free. i won;t pay 1100 Euro for XP Pro, and then another 400Euro for office 2003 or wahtever it'scalled. these are the prices where iot's going now here, and a Euro is about a dollar. for linux, i download 3 discs, and get:

an OS comparable to XP =                        1100
an office packet, better them MS Office =   300
a image editor like PSP  =                           700
a whole bunch of programming tools =       100 (probably more, but let's go easy)
and a lot of usefull apps, which you would have to download sepreately under windows. i get a total of 2200 Euro's spared, by downloading 3 discs. and for compatility, you can always run your old windows next to linux, or wait untill it's ported. which happens a lot to some older games.

[Zarax]

Look, i don't want to start a flame here. linux is a decent server os, in fact even my website is hosted with it, but you cannot compare it to windows as an alternative for the average user.
I use PCs since 1988, so i think i know a bit about computers and software...

[phreak]

the only time i've ever crashed anything windows was when i did some real stupid mistakes like not freeing allocated memory.  my linux router was extremely stable, but we had to replace it since it was destroying bandwith (like 1/6th of usual speed).

[kasperl]

ok, you're older then i am, i am 15, and i use PCs since i was 6.

but, in my own experience, linux is more suitable for office work, due to it's stability. for the beginner, windows might be easier, since it's pre-installed on the PC when they buy it. give a n00b a linux box with the same manuals as they get with their windows box, and they'll be just as happy. and really, i want myOS and  office packet's to be legal, and saving 2200 euro's does sound nice.

installing linux, and actually using it at full power, is indeed something for the more advanced user, but who uses his own windows install to the limits?

also, using linux for the same stuff as windows takes less of a system, so you could save on hardware upgrades too. no,w to be honest, i am typing this using windows, but that's jsut because i need MSN, and i haven;t gotten around to installing GAIM properly. but everything you'd normally use under windows, you can do under linux, with less power needed from your PC.

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]Zarax you don't work at the M$ lab at Redmond do you?
[/color]

[Zarax]

I'm pretty far from Redmond Maeglamor... About an ocean and a continent and half... About resource usage... My PC change rate is around one in 4 years, and just because i use stuff with heavy hardware requisites (FlaskMPEG for example... My PIII 1ghz is aging now).
Anyways i talk with people at Microsoft at times, and i'm well aware of the problematics residing there.
Have you ever tried to be polite and ask them to help you?
Well, they will be happy to, and sometimes you discover interesting stuff (i.e. working around a suspect video codec issue i discovered a nasty bug in flaskmpeg thanks to their help)...
Anyways, when the Insatiable Borg Machine (IBM for friends) will start eating up all linux related companies and making trash of your beloved GPL you will discover why i'm so happy about Microsoft...

[phreak]

that reminds me, is the GPL admissable in court?  i would image it is a legal grey area

[Zarax]

Well, no one tried seriously to violate it yet, mainly due to the negative publicity that would come from that...
Anyways, the definition is blurry at best...
It would rather depend on the quality of the lawyers on both sides than the lincence itself...

[Kamikaze]

Actually SCO (Santa Cruz Operation, made early x86 unix ports) is trying to (or already has) violate the GPL as we speak.

Anyhow, you cannot seriously consider yourself a skilled computer anything if you believe Windows is superior just because an average joe can use it. Windows goes nowhere near what is called "programming elegance".

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]By 'quality of lawyers', I presume you meant to say 'amount of highly-paid lawyers that Microsoft can afford to field due to the extortionate prices it charges in its software monopoly'?
And, Zarax, change your location then. It says Redmond. The fact you can put something completely wrong in such a simple field as 'location' seriously makes me consider your arguments a little.
And also, you cannot use your supposed 'experience' to back your viewpoints up. To make a comparison, if you grew up in a world such as George Orwell's 'Big Brother', and there had never been an alternative, you would hardly be qualified to speak about one if it popped up one day. Indeed, in this example you would probably be tortured if you said anything good about the opposition, but that's only my example. I don't imagine it'd be too far off though if Microsoft had their way.
And as for Windows and your praise of its compatibility level, may I add that WinXP wouldn't run on this laptop even if I tried. It would complain about 'not enough memory'. Since when did a decent operating system require 128mb of memory to 'barely' run? This laptop is only around 5 years old.[/color]

[Zarax]

"only" 5 years?
On a such old hardware you should try Windows NT or 2000...
And about programming elegance... you are only making assumptions on something you cannot see... Fortunately, outside Microsoft few people has been privileged to see Microsoft's source...
About your orwellian stuff, i'd like to remember you that who is mainly backing up linsux is IBM, better known between older programmers just as the Big Brother... Poor thorvalds surely did not expect to clean such a reputation as IBM one... But don't worry, they will be so grateful that once the open source community will do the dirt work you can expect an OS3... Which will be very similar to linux, only not open source...
Finally, about my skills, i'll only say that i've started programming in COBOL long ago... i'll leave the rest of the assumptions to you omniscent people...