cerbie wrote:Aside: mplayer is a terrible music player.
I'm sorry, but I may have to ask you to step outside.
OK. Now that we're out here, I'll take the most famous example, by far: Brain Damage going into Eclipse, in both MP3 (modern LAME), and FLAC. Mplayer 29776-1 fails. So, mplayer is a poor music player. MPD 0.15.5-1 succeeds, and so meets minimum performance requirements for being a decent music player.
Meteorswarm wrote:
cerbie wrote:
While this obviously doesn't work for firefox or reading a pdf or irc or chat (Kopete) or music (Aqualung) or any kind of programming (Scite, Kate, Eclipse).
FTFY. Aside: mplayer is a terrible music player. MPD can be used from the command-line, though, and plays music fine. So far, sadly, nothing in Windows 7 seems to allow for long-term skip-free playback.
Seriously? Your inability to use appropriate and quality software is not my problem. Kate is in no way better than vim, nano, emacs, or whatever you like to use, AND you can run those things under screen.
Seriously? Your inability to find easier to use software is not my problem. They are all appropriate and quality software for their jobs. Kate is actually quite nice, if piggish, though I use Scite on my boxes. Scite is far superior to Vim or emacs for any coding I've done (except where there weren't other options). I like nano, but I'd never be caught programming in it.
OOPMan wrote:Of course, this might be because I'm running 2d acceleration only
Ironically, it's my Compiz desktop that is rock stable, with nVidia binary drivers. It's X on my SuperSavage IXC that can be problematic, and sometimes there, it's X needing to be zapped, even when not crashed. 3D basically doesn't work on it. Meanwhile, the nVidia Windows drivers still can't seem to handle S1 or S3 w/o issues, and every video anomaly is accompanied by audio skipping.
DSenette: (...) on the whole, even a trained killer cow is kind of stupid.
Okay, X does crash, but very rarely. Windows programs crash or fail to respond a whole lot. At least with Linux if it happens, it's consistent in what causes instead of just bluescreening randomly and giving a cryptic error message. It's a lot easier to root out the problem and download fixes if necessary than what you would do on Windows. (which is wait in horror for the next crash, or buy a new computer)
http://internetometer.com/give/4279 No one can agree how to count how many types of people there are. You could ask two people and get 10 different answers.
I'll make the mistake of taking the thread title at face value and mention one thing I've noticed in particular
In Windows, you can use Unicode (UTF-16) internally and never worry about encodings or translation etc - everything at the OS level (file names, registry keys, etc), is implemented in Unicode.
In Linux, you can use UTF-8 if you want, but for example when it comes to filenames you have to trust that everyone else has also done so, and if not then you're stuck with no way to let the user refer to the file in their home directory whose name is in a different encoding.
GENERATION 99: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and subtract 1 from the generation. Social experiment.
Woegjiub wrote:I've had about as many X crashes as I have BSODs, but the BSODs were due to problems that I didn't cause (eg: bad ext2 driver causing a MASSIVE memory leak), in comparison to the X crashes, which were all me buggering around trying to get ATi cards to work with KDE's compositing - every single time, I've basically had to reinstall because I don't know how to turn it off without the dialogue.
Er? Boot into a text console and edit your Xorg.conf file manually and disable the compositing extension?
Hehehe, if only. Hitting control+alt+f1 on the jarbled, incomprehensible mess I had resulted in an instant reboot.
Starting up in a text console and deleting the KDE folder does it (deleting my xorg didn't :s), but my point was that the only problemm I'd had was due to shoddy ATi drivers (somehow, installing from the kubuntu repos results in a completely useless X.)
EduardoLeon wrote:Porn sites don't give virus themselves, but the ads they have are infested with worms, trojans and whatnot. And no antivirus (be it free or proprietary) is fast enough to be run in a virtual machine.
There are ads on the internet? Thankyou adblock. BTW, I agree with you - my point was that people stupid enough to click on "WIN AN IPOD" should really be using linux to keep them safe.
And if you're going to bash windows, I suggest you try out windows 7. I've been running the full release for a month or so now, and it's rather good, even if it is ugly compared to linux, and requires 3rd party software. It's fast, stable, and actually has a few features linux could benefit from.
Woegjiub wrote:I've had about as many X crashes as I have BSODs, but the BSODs were due to problems that I didn't cause (eg: bad ext2 driver causing a MASSIVE memory leak), in comparison to the X crashes, which were all me buggering around trying to get ATi cards to work with KDE's compositing - every single time, I've basically had to reinstall because I don't know how to turn it off without the dialogue.
Er? Boot into a text console and edit your Xorg.conf file manually and disable the compositing extension?
Hehehe, if only. Hitting control+alt+f1 on the jarbled, incomprehensible mess I had resulted in an instant reboot.
Starting up in a text console and deleting the KDE folder does it (deleting my xorg didn't :s), but my point was that the only problemm I'd had was due to shoddy ATi drivers (somehow, installing from the kubuntu repos results in a completely useless X.)
No, that's bad design. There should be a way to start with features that are not so experimental. Also, how hard is it to boot to a console with an installed Ubuntu, these days? That used to be one of my gripes, but I haven't tried it w/ 9.04 (and haven't tried a 9.10 at all).
DSenette: (...) on the whole, even a trained killer cow is kind of stupid.
EduardoLeon wrote:I have already tried it, and I still miss XP.
I guess it's just not your thing... I think it's the best Windows yet, aero black looks nice (unlike luna *vomit*), it runs smoothly, and the new taskbar is too awesome.
cerbie wrote:No, that's bad design. There should be a way to start with features that are not so experimental. Also, how hard is it to boot to a console with an installed Ubuntu, these days? That used to be one of my gripes, but I haven't tried it w/ 9.04 (and haven't tried a 9.10 at all).
Oh, the default open-source drivers worked, just not for compositing. It's always been as simple as starting up in text mode using GRUB...... Admittedly, that option isn't given so you have to tack the mode onto the end of the boot command, but it's still there if you know how.
Woegjiub wrote:And if you're going to bash windows, I suggest you try out windows 7.
I have already tried it, and I still miss XP.
Windows 7 makes it seem like Microsoft is trying too hard to impress their users, and for the wrong reasons. I really don't like the soft dinging noises and glassy windows. How do these enhance the computing experience? It's like one of those over-the-top flash-based websites, except the whole interface is designed that way.
I think they're hiding subliminal messages, but I don't have any proof. Yet.
http://internetometer.com/give/4279 No one can agree how to count how many types of people there are. You could ask two people and get 10 different answers.
Woegjiub wrote:I guess it's just not your thing... I think it's the best Windows yet, aero black looks nice (unlike luna *vomit*), it runs smoothly, and the new taskbar is too awesome.
I use the classic Windows theme, not Luna. And, when you have multidimensional models implemented across several Excel workbooks with lots of VBA hacks, believe me, to be able to see each window separately in the taskbar is not an important feature, it's a must.
TheChewanater wrote:Windows 7 makes it seem like Microsoft is trying too hard to impress their users, and for the wrong reasons. I really don't like the soft dinging noises and glassy windows. How do these enhance the computing experience? It's like one of those over-the-top flash-based websites, except the whole interface is designed that way.
They are trying to come up with an excuse for their overpriced OS.
EduardoLeon wrote:I use the classic Windows theme, not Luna. And, when you have multidimensional models implemented across several Excel workbooks with lots of VBA hacks, believe me, to be able to see each window separately in the taskbar is not an important feature, it's a must.
So did I, but aero looks nicer than either (obviously not as nice as KDE though ) I used to hate stacking, but with multiple monitors and multiple desktops, needing to see the titles became unnecessary to me :p It also allows normal use without stacking, and showing titlebars. The quicklaunch being integrated into the taskbar is something awesome, and so is the recent documents list on all executables, the ability to pin recent documents per application, etc... it's all so handy.
TheChewanater wrote:Windows 7 makes it seem like Microsoft is trying too hard to impress their users, and for the wrong reasons. I really don't like the soft dinging noises and glassy windows. How do these enhance the computing experience? It's like one of those over-the-top flash-based websites, except the whole interface is designed that way.
They are trying to come up with an excuse for their overpriced OS.[/quote]
It's not impressive, those things just make it feel nicer to use. Still not as nice as KDE, but it's certainly better than any previous windows.
Woegjiub wrote:And if you're going to bash windows, I suggest you try out windows 7.
I have already tried it, and I still miss XP.
Windows 7 makes it seem like Microsoft is trying too hard to impress their users, and for the wrong reasons. I really don't like the soft dinging noises and glassy windows. How do these enhance the computing experience? It's like one of those over-the-top flash-based websites, except the whole interface is designed that way.
It's just as easy to turn that off in 7 as it was in 2k--it's all in the same places (translucent windows can go to Hell...with one easy checkbox!). Those are features that look good in demos, so they are on by default. P.S. I can't see to add an image here of my settings dialog.
Now, why hiding extensions is still a default, that remains a mystery to me.
EduardoLeon wrote:I use the classic Windows theme, not Luna. And, when you have multidimensional models implemented across several Excel workbooks with lots of VBA hacks, believe me, to be able to see each window separately in the taskbar is not an important feature, it's a must.
You get the same view in the task switcher, giving you both the keyboard and mouse to work with, and it shows all windows. No need for the taskbar at all, except to get to the tray.
DSenette: (...) on the whole, even a trained killer cow is kind of stupid.
cerbie wrote:Now, why hiding extensions is still a default, that remains a mystery to me.
Remember their target audience. Despite Win7 highlighting only the part of the filename before the extension, idiotic people will still remove the .doc, and then complain when they can't open their word documents. This is one reason why using file headers for identifying filetypes instead of extensions is an advantage - the speed disadvantage is too great though, so a comprimise is to hide extensions from idiots.
cerbie wrote:You get the same view in the task switcher, giving you both the keyboard and mouse to work with, and it shows all windows. No need for the taskbar at all, except to get to the tray.
I might have, say, fifteen open windows, only four of which are the Excel spreadsheets I'm working on. Besides, the order of the windows in the task switcher depends on what windows have you been using the most recently. On the contrary, in XP, if you disable the window grouping feature, each window is "sticked" to a particular position in the taskbar, so you don't have to think too much to switch to another window.
cerbie wrote:You get the same view in the task switcher, giving you both the keyboard and mouse to work with, and it shows all windows. No need for the taskbar at all, except to get to the tray.
I might have, say, fifteen open windows, only four of which are the Excel spreadsheets I'm working on. Besides, the order of the windows in the task switcher depends on what windows have you been using the most recently. On the contrary, in XP, if you disable the window grouping feature, each window is "sticked" to a particular position in the taskbar, so you don't have to think too much to switch to another window.
But, that can require quite a bit of thinking: where is the current window in the list or on the taskbar? Two or three letters of the title do not make for a helpful label (I have 14 windows open, ATM, and across 1680 pixels, none have over three letters), when many have the same icon. The list from hovering takes awhile to show up, and does not show the whole title. Alt-tab makes it a fairly simple stack (except that full-screen 3D games seem to get special treatment--WTF). The last window I was at is one tab away, the next 2, and so on. Going through 5-10 windows with alt-tab takes as much time as getting the mouseover activation for the taskbar-based thumbnails. That said, a task switcher with list order matching the taskbar wouldn't be a bad idea, either. It would still have its advantages over the taskbar.
Now, if you don't need to do drag&drop between windows, virtual workspaces make the whole thing even simpler (if you do, they are still useful, but you have to know your WM's implementation when using maximized windows): the windows are in the same place they have been, right where you put them, and are a click or key away. Since I'm too lazy to reboot and take a screenie of my own (I'm in Win7): http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p131 ... shot-7.png (Compiz ain't just wobbly windows) Or, for cluttered people (Scale == Apple's Expose): http://andrewharvey4.files.wordpress.co ... plugin.png
DSenette: (...) on the whole, even a trained killer cow is kind of stupid.
Despite what people will say about better security models/file system/etc, the single best thing about linux is being able to easily find free programs for performing simple day-to-day tasks without having to worry about dealing with limited-feature shareware. The sort of trivial shit that people try to charge money for on Windows is unreal - $20 for batch file renamers, $10 image format converters, $30 avi splitters, etc. Who pays for this stuff?
with linux, you can just type what youre trying to do into google and the first hit is going to tell you a program which actually does it, for free. Compare this to this for why linux is a much less frustrating platform for actually getting things done.
What's wrong with experienced users using some variant of Ubuntu?
http://internetometer.com/give/4279 No one can agree how to count how many types of people there are. You could ask two people and get 10 different answers.
What's wrong with experienced users using some variant of Ubuntu?
Typically, The Ubuntu Way is easy to understand for new users, but frustrating as hell to operate when you know it would be much easier to just do with a few short command line instructions. But unfortunately, the CLI in Ubuntu is a royal pain in the butt and works like nothing you'd expect it virtually any other UNIX-like system to do.
You, sir, name? wrote: But unfortunately, the CLI in Ubuntu is a royal pain in the butt and works like nothing you'd expect it virtually any other UNIX-like system to do.
In what way? I honestly dont understand what you can mean.
What's wrong with experienced users using some variant of Ubuntu?
Typically, The Ubuntu Way is easy to understand for new users, but frustrating as hell to operate when you know it would be much easier to just do with a few short command line instructions. But unfortunately, the CLI in Ubuntu is a royal pain in the butt and works like nothing you'd expect it virtually any other UNIX-like system to do.
What? How is it different from other distros?
http://internetometer.com/give/4279 No one can agree how to count how many types of people there are. You could ask two people and get 10 different answers.
What's wrong with experienced users using some variant of Ubuntu?
If you prefer the ease of install then by all means use this as your preferred distro, but if you have experience enough to install something at the level of Gentoo, I don't really see a reason why you shouldn't or wouldn't.
What's wrong with experienced users using some variant of Ubuntu?
If you prefer the ease of install then by all means use this as your preferred distro, but if you have experience enough to install something at the level of Gentoo, I don't really see a reason why you shouldn't or wouldn't.
If there's something out there that's better for experienced users I want to know.
I think I'm gonna look into Gentoo.
http://internetometer.com/give/4279 No one can agree how to count how many types of people there are. You could ask two people and get 10 different answers.
If there's something out there that's better for experienced users I want to know.
I think I'm gonna look into Gentoo.
If you're comfortable with installing everything from the GUI etc. yourself, I would suggest Gentoo as your preferred Linux distro due to the ability to customize everything as you see fit. There is nothing wrong with Ubuntu, but one could view it as "bloated".
Edit: In terms of Ubuntu servers, it leaves a lot to be desired. I consider Ubuntu solely a user OS.
Last edited by JohnTheSavage on Wed Oct 28, 2009 12:33 am UTC, edited 1 time in total.
What's wrong with experienced users using some variant of Ubuntu?
If you prefer the ease of install then by all means use this as your preferred distro, but if you have experience enough to install something at the level of Gentoo, I don't really see a reason why you shouldn't or wouldn't.
If there's something out there that's better for experienced users I want to know.
I think I'm gonna look into Gentoo.
Here are some options. The review reflects my subjective opinion and experiences (which is mostly based on earlier versions than the current), so take it with a grain of salt:
Debian is a bit more like Ubuntu for grown-ups. It uses basically the same package system as Ubuntu. Learning curve: Moderate. Customizability: High Installing new packages: Easy as pie Chance of catastrophic failure upon install: Low-Medium
Slackware comes with most of your basic needs, it's very well configured straight out of the box, but adding new software is a bit of a headache (since the packaging system is very minimalistic). (This is one of my favorites.) Learning curve: Moderate-Steep. Customizability: Low-Medium Installing new packages: Hard Chance of catastrophic failure upon install: Low
Gentoo is what you want to fine-tune your system. The packaging system has a pretty steep learning curve though, and most of the time, you really don't get that much more out of your system. Learning curve: Steep-Very steep. Customizability: Extreme Installing new packages: Easy, unless something goes wrong, then cleaning up the mess is a serious headache. Chance of catastrophic failure upon install: Medium-High
I've found that... when I don't do stupid things with windows, it does the job well for me.
I mean I'm running vista right now, and I like it to be honest. It works for me, is now compatible with everything I need and some of the new functionality does make sense.
it probably helps that I have decent specs.
but I mean, as long as I follow instructions thoroughly and am not retarded, I have no real issues with it. I've never had a windows crash, it's easier to terminate programs (which is so useful as programs are typically what crash for me) and it looks nicer.
What's wrong with experienced users using some variant of Ubuntu?
If you prefer the ease of install then by all means use this as your preferred distro, but if you have experience enough to install something at the level of Gentoo, I don't really see a reason why you shouldn't or wouldn't.
If there's something out there that's better for experienced users I want to know.
I think I'm gonna look into Gentoo.
Here are some options. The review reflects my subjective opinion and experiences (which is mostly based on earlier versions than the current), so take it with a grain of salt:
Debian is a bit more like Ubuntu for grown-ups. It uses basically the same package system as Ubuntu. Learning curve: Moderate. Customizability: High Installing new packages: Easy as pie Chance of catastrophic failure upon install: Low-Medium
Slackware comes with most of your basic needs, it's very well configured straight out of the box, but adding new software is a bit of a headache (since the packaging system is very minimalistic). (This is one of my favorites.) Learning curve: Moderate-Steep. Customizability: Low-Medium Installing new packages: Hard Chance of catastrophic failure upon install: Low
Gentoo is what you want to fine-tune your system. The packaging system has a pretty steep learning curve though, and most of the time, you really don't get that much more out of your system. Learning curve: Steep-Very steep. Customizability: Extreme Installing new packages: Easy, unless something goes wrong, then cleaning up the mess is a serious headache. Chance of catastrophic failure upon install: Medium-High
Here's another option. I use this one at work all the time because it's simple, reliable and usable:
Mandriva is what you want if you like the idea behind Ubuntu but think the execution is shoddy with regards to KDE, default package options and configuration tools. Learning Curve: Low Customizability: High Installing New Packages: Easy Chance of catastrophic failure on install: Low
For me, this is what an OS for a work machine should be. Quick, simple and reliable with a good selection of initial packages backed by a well maintained set of repos covering everything from Free to Non-Free software.
Personally, I don't get the buzz behind things like Gentoo and the like. Just because I can run my linux like it's 1996 and I'm still on Redhat 3.0.3 Picasso doesn't mean I want to. Building packages and rpms from source isn't a tall leap when it's required, which is not often, and I'm pretty sure that 99% of the software on my system doesn't benefit from being recompiled with MMX/SSE stuff enabled anyway...
Cosmologicon wrote:Emu* implemented a naive east-first strategy and ran it for an hour, producing results that rivaled many sophisticated strategies, visiting 614 cells. For this, Emu* is awarded Best Deterministic Algorithm!
poohat wrote:Despite what people will say about better security models/file system/etc, the single best thing about linux is being able to easily find free programs for performing simple day-to-day tasks without having to worry about dealing with limited-feature shareware. The sort of trivial shit that people try to charge money for on Windows is unreal - $20 for batch file renamers, $10 image format converters, $30 avi splitters, etc. Who pays for this stuff?
with linux, you can just type what youre trying to do into google and the first hit is going to tell you a program which actually does it, for free. Compare this to this for why linux is a much less frustrating platform for actually getting things done.
OOPMan wrote:Personally, I don't get the buzz behind things like Gentoo and the like. Just because I can run my linux like it's 1996 and I'm still on Redhat 3.0.3 Picasso doesn't mean I want to. Building packages and rpms from source isn't a tall leap when it's required, which is not often, and I'm pretty sure that 99% of the software on my system doesn't benefit from being recompiled with MMX/SSE stuff enabled anyway...
With today's computers, it really doesn't take all that long to build a package in gentoo (go More's law!). It's only the reaallly big packages that take time, but there's generally speaking not a whole lot of those you'll want to install, so it's no problem. Otherwise, building a package from scratch takes time comparable to installing a rpm or deb.
I think the appeal with gentoo-like systems is that they are so transparent. It is possible to fully understand what actually goes on behind the scenes. Especially in Ubuntu (I don't know about Mandriva), that stuff is completely obscure. Whereas configuring gentoo or something would entail editing a simple text file, you have to navigate a maze of user interfaces in Ubuntu.
I think a lot of the buzz is the whole honest do it your self mentality. Any old operating system can present you with a monolithic GUI hiding the guts from the users, but very few actually encourage you to poke around behind the scenes. It is a bit over-hyped, but it's certainly appeals to that same part that made building stuff out of lego blocks so much fun when you were a kid.
OOPMan wrote:Personally, I don't get the buzz behind things like Gentoo and the like. Just because I can run my linux like it's 1996 and I'm still on Redhat 3.0.3 Picasso doesn't mean I want to. Building packages and rpms from source isn't a tall leap when it's required, which is not often, and I'm pretty sure that 99% of the software on my system doesn't benefit from being recompiled with MMX/SSE stuff enabled anyway...
With today's computers, it really doesn't take all that long to build a package in gentoo (go More's law!). It's only the reaallly big packages that take time, but there's generally speaking not a whole lot of those you'll want to install, so it's no problem. Otherwise, building a package from scratch takes time comparable to installing a rpm or deb.
I think the appeal with gentoo-like systems is that they are so transparent. It is possible to fully understand what actually goes on behind the scenes. Especially in Ubuntu (I don't know about Mandriva), that stuff is completely obscure. Whereas configuring gentoo or something would entail editing a simple text file, you have to navigate a maze of user interfaces in Ubuntu.
I think a lot of the buzz is the whole honest do it your self mentality. Any old operating system can present you with a monolithic GUI hiding the guts from the users, but very few actually encourage you to poke around behind the scenes. It is a bit over-hyped, but it's certainly appeals to that same part that made building stuff out of lego blocks so much fun when you were a kid.
That's kind of weird, though, because just about every linux distro out there can be configured by hand using VIM and the contents of etc. Mandriva, being a desktop-friendly linux distro provides a bunch of tools for configuring things like the firewall, file sharing and all that jazz but at the root of it it's still the same files in /etc that are being edited.
If that's meant to be the draw with gentoo then I have to agree with the whole "gentoo is for ricers" stance
With regards to compiling from source my work system is an Athlon X2 with 4gb of RAM but I still find that MySQL and Chromium take more than a few minutes to compile. The former usually takes about 10 mins, while the latter is more like 30mins after source updates. I sure wouldn't want that kind of lag for the other huge bits of software in the system.
OOPMan wrote:That's kind of weird, though, because just about every linux distro out there can be configured by hand using VIM and the contents of etc. Mandriva, being a desktop-friendly linux distro provides a bunch of tools for configuring things like the firewall, file sharing and all that jazz but at the root of it it's still the same files in /etc that are being edited.
I haven't tried a GUI-heavy distro in quite a while, but they used to make compromises for machine-parseability of the files. I sometimes found either hopelessly baroque and roundabout ways of doing things; or that I could edit the file, but all bets were off on the GUI after that. Perhaps techniques have improved since.
OOPMan wrote:That's kind of weird, though, because just about every linux distro out there can be configured by hand using VIM and the contents of etc. Mandriva, being a desktop-friendly linux distro provides a bunch of tools for configuring things like the firewall, file sharing and all that jazz but at the root of it it's still the same files in /etc that are being edited.
Basically, this:
TNorthover wrote:I haven't tried a GUI-heavy distro in quite a while, but they used to make compromises for machine-parseability of the files. I sometimes found either hopelessly baroque and roundabout ways of doing things; or that I could edit the file, but all bets were off on the GUI after that. Perhaps techniques have improved since.
And no, they haven't improved. In my experience, things have gone from bad to worse.
OOPMan wrote:With regards to compiling from source my work system is an Athlon X2 with 4gb of RAM but I still find that MySQL and Chromium take more than a few minutes to compile. The former usually takes about 10 mins, while the latter is more like 30mins after source updates. I sure wouldn't want that kind of lag for the other huge bits of software in the system.
Gentoo really doesn't belong on a system, like a server, that requires a constantly up-to-date set of software. It is inherently less secure than other distributions more suitable for such applications (but then, so are most desktop-oriented distributions as well). Most of the time, it's install once--update if a future program relies on a more modern version (or you want to compile in more functionality.)
Maybe some experienced users just want to get on with actually doing stuff rather than typing the same commands and editing the same configuration files every time they want to connect to a wireless network.
GENERATION 99: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and subtract 1 from the generation. Social experiment.
Random832 wrote:Maybe some experienced users just want to get on with actually doing stuff rather than typing the same commands and editing the same configuration files every time they want to connect to a wireless network.
What's keeping the experienced user from simply doing that with a batch file?
Thankyou adblock.
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