Manoj Srivastava wrote:
On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 17:18:03 +0530, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com said:
FOSS users have to be content to make sacrifices as they cannot do everything that can be done on CSS platforms. It is a conscious decision one has to take before migrating to FOSS. Just yesterday, I wanted to copy some video CDs but K3B in Kubuntu 6.10 and 6.06 threw up errors that it cannot read disks with multiple tracks. Finally I had to use my Windows XP to do it using Nero. There are many such instances where one is compelled to use the Windows platform to get their work done.
This might have been your experience (and I commiserate), but
that has not been my experience. Indeed, it is the other way around: few proprietary programs can read my BibTeX bibliography records, have no idea how to do proper kerning like TeX does, can't read my inkscape drawings, and so on.
Your point is accepted.
A few months ago, I had installed Ubuntu 7.04 for someone. A few days ago, I met him found that he was still into windows. He mentioned that his ICICI site did not open in Linux. So I checked it out. It required JRE and firefox threw up green icons of additional plugins required. I followed the instructions as given in the sun website but the browser would still ask for JRE. I even pasted the libjava...so into the plugin folder of local firefox, but still no change. Finally I tried to apt-get the older version but the manager botched up and I was left with a broken package. After more than 1 hour, the person got edgy and decided to use windows only.
The reason for this detailed description is to highlight that in Windows one simply runs the JRE exe and it is installed automatically. I did not rant about this as I thought that a solution will be in sight as time goes by. However when some people post ridiculous statements that anything the does not work in Linux is crap, this reaction is bound to happen and all the drawbacks of FOSS will come out. What is the use of FOSS if it does not get peoples' work done and in a reasonably fast installation time.