I dont post often but ive been a moderate linux user/admin/programmer for a while now, both professionally and just for fun. Ive seen this topic come up before, it just interests me.
On Mon, 31 Oct 2005, Neil Schneider wrote: > Richard Reynolds said: >>> There >>> are no more technical considerations. I mean, what more do people >>> want?? What does Windows do that Linux doesn't??? >> *it would be nice if linux really worked with more than 1 of my 10 >> printers >> ( 2 of which there is no excuse for lack of support) > > Ask the printer manufactuerers why their printers aren't supported. > Did you check http://www.linuxprinting.org ? If the manufacturers > refuse to provide hardware information to Linux developers it's not > the fault of Linux it's the fault of the manufacturer. Though i Guess I could have listed the printers by models, however as I wasnt really trying to solicit help, and the point was more that there are still technical reasons linux is not as reay as it could be for the desktop. Linux didn't exist when 2 of my un-supported printers were designed ... so NOPE didnt ask about those, however in plain old DOS(no fancy drivers or anything) I can make them print. linux they print garbage, or in the wrong mode. the canon printers I knew when I bought them they were unsupported, im OK ish with that as one is hooked up to a linux box and CUPS prints thru the windows driver to the printer (acting as a mini server and print spooler for the slower printer), when it comes to large inkjet printers, HP was it, so as far as I am concerned they made the standard and we linux users have not Jumped in line. >> *it would be nice if it supported w/o hacking all of the features of >> my laptop .... (though not a HUGE deal) > > It supports all the features of my laptop. Your is obviously not an > IBM. I check hardware support before buying it. For years I would not > buy any adaptec scsi cards, and I told them so, because they refused > to provide the programmers the information to support their hardware. > Eventually the got the message and now Adaptec is well supported. I > don't by any hardware if the manufacturer refuses do provide either > Linux drivers or information that the programmers can use to write the > drivers. I vote with my pocketbook for Linux. No and its an HP, but even then sometimes the hacking is just a simple matter of assigning one of the *magic* keys to an action, not a big deal, but sometimes it just doesnt work, on top of that the same scancodes for the volume on this recently purchased laptop are the EXACT same ones as a keyboard thats at least a year old now so why didnt It just work??? (not looking for a technical response, but responding to the topic) and at least I have not figured out how to make my X-windows hybernate (that is to save everything exactly like i had it, and restore when linux boots) > >> *a presentation software package (like powerpoint) that worked !!! > > I haven't used it personally but I understand OpenOffice has a work > alike for PowerPoint. I dont need it to look like powerpoint, actually id prefere it didnt, I need it to work, and that includes working with powerpoint presentations, Ive got at least a small handful of presentations that do not work in it but do in powerpoint. (thinking back after typing this response I think those work in OO for windows... gona have to tinker again) > >> lets face >> it when im at work trying to run one on linux and its not doing what I >> want, >> I look bad! or if one of the other people in the room says "hey why >> didnt >> you do" ... "like I did in powerpoint" again I look bad! >> * it would be nice if i could handle excel and access files better, > > I've opened, modified and saved changes to Excel spreadsheets in Open > Office, so I know that works! Technically though, it's not Linux, as > Open Office also has a version for Windows, that I have tested. And it > works on Excell spread sheets just fine. for plain and simple stuff and smaller stuff OO in linux works fine. add some vb macros and OO in windows works, try those in linux, and it just depends, and ive been a bad programmer and not cared to figure out why. I can not however get a 175mb plain old excel (no vba, macros ....) to load, export to CSV and its a wiz, but it means windows first. > Access is a database, not a very good one, but a database nonetheless. > We have a ton of different databases that work in Linux. We don't have > access for Linux. I dont need access for linux, I need a database that works with access data files, (changed the wording but that is what I meant) but I know how to make several other databases work so a converter would work if thats what I had to do. again if I choose to I can export from access but I sure cant expect a client to. and then I get the fun and joy of figuring out how to get it back into access. >> again I >> cant say to my clients "sorry I dont run M$", and most dont understand >> that >> either excel is the wrong tool for the job or that access isnt a tool >> :D > > I tell my clients all the time, I don't run Windows. The send me word > attachments, Excel attachments never PowerPoint. I deal with all of > them in Linux just fine. I do warn them about sending me html email. > My spam filters usually put them into my spam mailbox, which will > delay my response. But I can deal with them fine too. I gave up on no html, and for some non work *fun* stuff its kinda cool to have fancy stuff in my emails, I have a cool background with a pink ribbon that I have been using for a while now.... but not to lists, and not to work. >> * full support for my scanner (though really its close ....) > > I have only owned one scanner, and I gave it away before ever trying > to make it work, so I can't respond to that. its why I put "full" 90% works just fine, it has issues when the bulb is warming up, i have no solution for, basically i get an error... and once again the *magic* buttons dont work right. >> * better video editing would be nice > > There must be some video editing software for Linux since most of the > movie studios use Linux for doing preproduction work these days. I > don't do it, so I can't get any more specific than that. But, I do > know there is high quality video editing software for Linux. Ive searched, I have not found, ive found some real garbage, and there are a zillion filter like apps, and converters and such, but I have not found anything id call high quality. not that there are not apps for video editing. > >> * REAL data recovery software (all the good packages are m$ dos and or >> M$ >> windows based) and on that I wouldnt mind shelling out $,$$$ but it >> had >> better work the first time just like the packages that run in/on M$ >> do. > > I'm not sure what data recovery software your talking about. If you > delete a file in Linux it's deleted. If you're talking about backup > and recovery software, there is a large selection of Open Source and > commercial software available for Linux and those that I've run and > tested work well. I am talking data recovery, not undelete, also I have on several ocasions undeleted from ext2 but from in windows (what a JOKE) im also talking reading whats on a drive even though the OS cant. > >> * email though in reality I dont like the M$ versions either I end up >> using >> 3, OE (using now, on laptop) outlook and pine, and using all 3 is >> getting >> can we say OLD!!! > > You have a ton of choices in Linux for how you read and respond to > email. I'm using a web based email client right now, because it's the > way I track the responsiveness of a service I provide to clients. I've > used Pine and mutt, I've looked at others, some I liked, some I > didn't. Outlook is one of the worse email clients I've ever had the > misfortune to look at, but many people depend upon it for their daily > correspondence. I run my own, and on occasion, clients mail servers > and they are all highly reliable. More than I can say for Exchange. at no point did I say I was happy with outlook/exchange. however If I must connect to exchange (which i often do), tons of choices on MUA's but no great choice, its not always about how many to choose from. there are tons of choices for windows also, yet I use the M$ ones. >> * a FAST simple image viewer like acdsee, though in reality i have not >> tried >> out any in the last 6 months or so .... so they could have gotten >> better > > Tracy already mentioned display. I'm somewhat partial to XV. It does a > lot of nice things that display doesn't do for me. If I want to > manipulate images I'm likely to use either Gimp or XV, depending upon > how I want to manipulate the image. I am not remembering display off the top of my head, acdsee is more of a show me the files along with image info (dimentions colordepth), show the image and index some things so i can search fast and let me move/copy/rename them, though there are some basic editing, I like and use Gimp also. > >> * and though this is more of a dystro and ME problem, it would be nice >> if I >> could get rid of all of the server/multi user stuff. granted I like it >> on a >> few machines, but back to my laptop the only user is ME, if I am going >> to do >> something stupid im gona do it with or without having to type su - to >> do >> so!!! > > Maybe you should try Xandros. It's a very "Microsoft" like interface, > suitable for people who are more comfortable with Microsoft Windows > than X-windows. I installed it on a machine for my grandaughter, > (she's 12) and she had absolutely no problem using it. Im fine with the x-windows interface, for most of my PC's, especially the work ones, but ill leave dual boot windows/linux for my toy, and laptop, however I think I will stick it on the laptop and see what happens >> a note from experience >> * a good FlightSim would be nice, and full support for 2 monitors and >> my >> joystick/flightstick whichamacallit (in the flightsim) > > Perhaps we need to do a presentation on Linux for Windows users. There > seem to be a lot of misperceptions about what you can and can't do > with Linux that still persist. maybe however remember desktop world and any other category you want to put those that are using linux now world are different, if you want to compare notes thats fine, but lets face it windows succeeds because applications work ok ish, as much as something with a warning label and a scary EULA can and the user is ok ish with that, even if that 175mb excel file should *NEVER* have been put into excel to begin with to really push the sanity of that one its only about 22mb of data :) but it grows and changes and I have to cope with it :( and I want my flightsim!!! richard reynolds [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
