On Tuesday 04 January 2005 00:46, Rony Bill wrote:
On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 12:00, sherlock@vsnl.com wrote:
In short M$ is widely used not because it's easy but because of a whole history of piracy and illegal practices. And they did not make the pc popular. It was the low cost Taiwanese manufacturer who provided a platform for software like dos, wordstar, wordperfect, lotus123, gemplus, dbase, Turbo pascal, etc. And they existed BEFORE msdos and windows3.0.
They have existed but it is windows that became a household name.
Did u bother to read that link. If not here it is once again. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041228040645419 Read it before u try to enter a debate.
Go to the various homes and small offices and ask them what is windows and ask them the list of the above mentioned software. How windows became popular, by begging, borrowing or stealing is besides the point.
That is the point. And the key argument on wether M$ became popular due to ease of use, innovative technology or plain old theving and skullduggery.
I had faced a panic situation when I wiped out a client's partition table in order to simply remove a partition virus. His tally, mail and docs were in it. Luckily I recovered the files and saved my ass and even got paid for it. I am not claiming that windows is the best, I am only saying its the simplest to learn and get familiar with. Give newbies linux to install, configure and use and do the same experiment with windows.
Newbies are not supposed to install and configure YOU are supposed to install and configure the system as per his requirements.
Thats the whole issue Mr. Holmes.
By the way my name is Jude Terrence D'souza (Terrence to most)
I don't need a REAL education in computers and software to learn windows. Its simple to pick up and easy to get around. I never went to any class to learn windows.
That is why I said u need to educate yourself about computers and oses Windows is not an OS it is honey pot for worms and viruses. I would not ask my worst enemy to "educate" himself in windows.
Egos and high pedestals will get us nowhere.
But lack of knowledge and refusal to learn will get u somewhere - to the bottom of a very deep hole.
Programmers are very intelligent and smart and should be worshipped as Gods. Like the one for Amitabh Bachan, we can even build temples dedicated to them. But we should not forget that the most endearing and popular actors are those that became one with the masses, who felt the pulse of the masses and gave the masses what they wanted.
More nonsense. U place the real facts as they are. The masses will make a choice as opposed to hiding things and publishing ads on tv in Hindi about security of -oh-so-wormerful windows.Piracy has got nothing to do with civil disobdience. Since u are so woefully misinformed here is the difference. Piracy is when u take something which does not belong to you AND is explicitly prohibited by law AND u have an alternative for whatever it is u were pirating AND u hide the fact. Civil disobdience is protesting some law which takes away your right as given to you under the constitution AND u do so in the open AND u make it a point to inform the authorities about your protest. Now as a champion of piracy let's see u pirate a copy of windows at Churchgate (or Azad Maidan asumming u could get your other friendly pirates in sufficient numbers to participate), preceeded by a press release and letter to NASSCOM, M$, Cybercafe owners assoc., etc. That would qualify you in a few yrs time to be put on a pedestal.
It also shows that u are all ready to greedily take what the FOSS community and programmer offers without wanting to acknowledge their contributions or making the slightest effort to learn and overcome your limited and incomplete understanding of computers, oses, and the history and politics behind the current state of affairs in the computing industry. I have only pity for the likes of u. When I started using FOSS I too was (almost) in the same boat as u but I took the effort and time to get my facts in place before offering opinions based on wrong information.
rgds jtd
On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 11:06, sherlock@vsnl.com wrote:
Newbies are not supposed to install and configure YOU are supposed to install and configure the system as per his requirements.
By the way my name is Jude Terrence D'souza (Terrence to most)
More nonsense. U place the real facts as they are. The masses will make a choice as opposed to hiding things and publishing ads on tv in Hindi about security of -oh-so-wormerful windows.Piracy has got nothing to do with civil disobdience. Since u are so woefully misinformed here is the difference.
Dear Jude,
We are deviating from the original topic. This is, the ease of installation and setup of M$ compared to Linux. There is no doubt about the technical superiority of Linux compared to M$. However Linux which was meant to be a solid alternative to M$ has got scattered into too many flavours and kernel versions. This makes hardware compatibility and driver availability a genuine problem, compared to M$ where practically every hardware we buy from the market has M$ drivers but they may not have Linux drivers.
I fully support the use of either genuine paid software or freeware alternatives. I got 2 comps and invested approx. 12,000/- for Me and XP, even though free linux was available. Everything does not work in linux. My scanner has no support in linux. I tried out all the suggestions for the dot matrix too, only to learn from the internet that RHEL no longer supports LPRng. I even tried installing its rpm but it gave compatibility errors with the non LPRng software already in the linux box. I don't have any such problems in M$. When I can't get my own system up, how do I do it for others?
Deep knowledge of a system is good but a supplier or service provider will not do what a programmer does. His role is limitted to finding information from the net, downloading drivers (if they are available) and successfully installing them to make all the equipment work.
I visited the link you provided and its about the legal battles between M$ and others. It is interesting information but at the end of the day, my equipment has to work. Any software that works will do.
Everyone has to manage their profession according to their knowledge resources and if M$ works for the majority it will still be the popular choice even though Linux is free. The purpose of highlighting these problems is not to discourage anyone from Linux or avoid acknowledging the programmers' efforts but to give the user feedback so that programmers can do something to overcome these problems.
According to my most limitted knowledge, this problem is due to too many linux flavours flooding the market and competing with each other instead of M$. Divide Linux and M$ rules!!
Best Wishes,
Rony.
On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 15:09:09 +0530, "Rony Bill" ronbilly@hotpop.com said:
the technical superiority of Linux compared to M$. However Linux which was meant to be a solid alternative to M$ has got scattered into too
No, it was not ! GNU project was started to create a Free (speech) alternative to proprietary Unix distributions. M$ was a just-another-software-vendor then !
Rony Bill wrote:
According to my most limitted knowledge, this problem is due to too many linux flavours flooding the market and competing with each other instead of M$. Divide Linux and M$ rules!!
I would like to add a few lines regarding my experience on trying/advocating Linux in my office (a totally Windows dominated domain). Let's take an employee X (I'll use feminine gender henceforth to save asciibets & be politically correct):
1. X knows the "True MS" way of doing things & that the only s/w she has experienced.
2. X doesn't have time to experiment (though she doesn't mind endlessly going through Office 2000 Bible for Dummies).
3. Since majority is using some other s/w (which being MS need not/is not compatible with OSS), for the fear of being left behind, she cannot afford to wait with OSS till things work together.
4. If some MS feature is absent in a OSS, X can't wait till it is installed (though she wouldn't mind bowing before the 65,000 rows limit of MS Excel).
5. Whenever (& that is the case mostly) something does'nt work properply in Windows, X can catch hold of a colleague within a 4 cubicle radius who can fix things. Worst case scenario, the Windows Support Brotherhood a.k.a HelpDesk is available. The company doesn't employ Linux support engineers 'cause there ain't linux users around to support. Plus their entire setup is MS tech.
6. Since the entire intranet, the shared network resources, Internet access et all is totally MS tech., for some reason X cannot Sign-on, copy/read files from the network drives, go to Internet etc.etc. Samba, apache? Reminds X of wildlife.
May be I should paint X in black for stalling the progress of FLOSS and is a brain-dead MS slave. But to me X is just a cluless, blind creature busy surviving. And am I the enlightened evangelist? Hey, I'm busy surviving too.
Btw, I love OSS, consistently use linux at home, try to contribute by occasionally murmuring few words of help based on my limited knowlege to newbies & buying Linux distros.
Regards, Soumen
Hi,
I am new to Linux and to this group, Please let me know how to attend this MEET.
Is there any registration to be filed up? or just get down to the place?
thanks,
nitin
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! � Try it today!
On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 21:10, Soumen Dass wrote:
Btw, I love OSS, consistently use linux at home, try to contribute by occasionally murmuring few words of help based on my limited knowlege to newbies & buying Linux distros.
Regards, Soumen
I have tried to promote linux in my friends circle, telling them about the benefits like a stable and secure file system, immunity to viruses etc. but everything boils down to hardware compatibality. If all the devices don't work or work partially, it beats the purpose. When I looked for a modem driver for my int. modem in P4, there were about 5 or 6 driver versions just for the RHEL OS, depending on the numbers after the kernel version. The total drivers for that device for different Red Hat versions and with other linux flavours was quite a large number.
It is difficult but not impossible to persuade people to use alternate operating systems, if they get the added benefits of security and stability. Even in my XP, I use Open Office as an alternative to M$ Office. All my other software is free. Later versions of Linux have great desktops and the envirnment is similar to windows, so switching over is not very difficult, at least for SOHO users who don't use dedicated or custom software. The brakes are applied only in the hardware installation process where some devices don't work properly in linux. Since I am into hardware, I don't write programs or make drivers as that is not my field. Once the hardware compatibality obstacale is overcome, I will promote linux left, right and centre to everyone. Technology and free software collection and 'prachar' is my hobby and I promote a lot of that on the windows platform.
It would be nice if the linux programmers could get together and create a common system platform standard for linux where a common device driver will work for all the different linux flavours released in the same time period, so the device drivers that need to be written would have better flavour-compatibility and more devices can be covered in less time. Printing is also an area that needs attention. Please try to make printer installation and configuration as simple as in M$.
Best Wishes,
Rony.
On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 12:01:44 +0530, Rony Bill ronbilly@hotpop.com wrote:
On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 21:10, Soumen Dass wrote:
I have tried to promote linux in my friends circle, telling them about the benefits like a stable and secure file system, immunity to viruses etc. but everything boils down to hardware compatibality. If all the devices don't work or work partially, it beats the purpose. When I looked for a modem driver for my int. modem in P4, there were about 5 or 6 driver versions just for the RHEL OS, depending on the numbers after the kernel version. The total drivers for that device for different Red Hat versions and with other linux flavours was quite a large number.
It is difficult but not impossible to persuade people to use alternate operating systems, if they get the added benefits of security and stability. Even in my XP, I use Open Office as an alternative to M$ Office. All my other software is free. Later versions of Linux have great desktops and the envirnment is similar to windows, so switching over is not very difficult, at least for SOHO users who don't use dedicated or custom software. The brakes are applied only in the hardware installation process where some devices don't work properly in linux. Since I am into hardware, I don't write programs or make drivers as that is not my field. Once the hardware compatibality obstacale is overcome, I will promote linux left, right and centre to everyone. Technology and free software collection and 'prachar' is my hobby and I promote a lot of that on the windows platform.
It would be nice if the linux programmers could get together and create a common system platform standard for linux where a common device driver will work for all the different linux flavours released in the same time period, so the device drivers that need to be written would have better flavour-compatibility and more devices can be covered in less time. Printing is also an area that needs attention. Please try to make printer installation and configuration as simple as in M$.
You need to put h/w compatabilty in perspective. Read this to know why. http://os.newsforge.com/os/04/11/29/1559244.shtml?tid=2&tid=73&tid=1...
:) cheers Vinayak H
On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:08, Vinayak Hegde wrote:
You need to put h/w compatabilty in perspective. Read this to know why. http://os.newsforge.com/os/04/11/29/1559244.shtml?tid=2&tid=73&tid=1...
:) cheers Vinayak H
Thanks for that article Vinayak. My source of hardware is the guys at Lam. road and they are not in a position to suggest if their h/w is linux compatible and for what flavour and kernel version. Suppose that part is taken care of by getting info from the net and then buying h/w, but what about existing clients who I want to migrate to linux? Thats where the problem lies. As of now its still windows for them. Anyway thanks and keep sending suggestions and solutions. Any extra knowledge is always welcome.
Regards,
Rony.
-
Anurag -
NITIN THAKUR -
Pankaj Dekate -
Rony Bill -
sherlock＠vsnl.com -
Soumen Dass -
Vinayak Hegde