Linux: simply a novelty?

[askrieger]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

I'm not a lawyer, so I may be wrong, but I thought the cause for civil action (not a crime) was watching a DVD without using licensed software. When you purchase Linspire, you are purchasing a license to watch DVDs, listen to music encoded with patented methods, stc. That's what you're paying for.

[D1SxEyes]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

I think askrieger is right, Linspire is a legal way of watching DVDs on a non-MS platform.

So, to the main question: why do I use linux?

Well, a short history lesson is required. A few years ago, my dad bought a PC mag which had Knoppix stuck to the front of it (no, it wasn't a linux mag, it was one of the big computer magazines, I can't remember which exactly), and I tried it, thought it was pretty neat, but couldn't be bothered with the whole migration thing, so I just tossed it into the back of a cupboard somewhere, and carried on with Win98. It was fine, I could use MSN, I could browse the internet, I was relatively tech-savvy, so I avoided spyware, adware, that kind of thing. Then, I got a virus. In getting rid of it, somehow, I destroyed my MBR. I didn't have a Windows installation disk, so was in a spot of bother. I had a very big paperweight. Then the Knoppix CD popped into my head. At about 2 in the morning (which is always when my computers go wrong...), I stuck Knoppix into the CD drive, and from the K-Menu, I hit "Hard Disk Install", and ignored all the warning messages about how a LiveCD isn't really supposed to be installed to HD, and bingo. I had a working computer once more. The next day, I used a different PC to download NDISWrapper, and got it running on my Knoppix box, and connected to my wireless network.

The learning curve was steep, but it was FUN, and that enticed me. Over the years, I've been through a Knoppix HD install, a Mandrake install, SuSE, Mandrake again, Gentoo, and now finally Kubuntu. Throughout all of them, I've enjoyed watching the development of my favourite apps (in particular Amarok, but also stuff like Kontact, OpenOffice, GAIM, and Firefox), and it still excites me when i type in "sudo apt-get update", and I see "amarok" in the list of packages to be updated.

I have to be honest, I do miss gaming, but I have a PS2, which functions adequately for that, and as a student, I should be more careful with my money, and not waste it on PC games anyway

Kubuntu also offered me apps I'd never heard of before that do jobs that I would previously have to use a chain of apps to get done. That's NOT to say the software wasn't out there, it just wasn't pushed under my nose. Originally Quanta Plus, but I got sick of their auto-complete feature, and discovered Nvu. Kontact, that does what Outlook does, just for free. The GIMP, which does everything I ever wanted Paintshop Pro to do, and more. No more reduced functionality, in terms of MS Works, when I could have OpenOffice. KDissert, which would automatically generate essays from brainstorms. GAIM, which lets me sign into more than one MSN account at the same time. Etc.

Now, I'll happily concede that many of these apps have a windows equivalent, that may even work better. It's just... Kubuntu offers it all to me for free, with a much better support network, and I enjoy playing with it, and tinkering with it, and not having to spend an hour or two waiting for Windows to reinstall, wiping all my data if I accidentally break things.

That's why I use Kubuntu.

I don't hate MS, but I prefer Kubuntu.

D1SxEyes

[AdamF]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

watching DVDs on a linux OS is considered a crime in the states.

Ya what? You are joking?

Sometimes perhaps living in the UK isn't so bad after all...

[D1SxEyes]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

I'm not so sure it's legal here either (I live in the UK), so don't think you're safe

D1SxEyes

[podunk]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

Hey D1S,

Maybe you can help me?

I am a *very* happy Kubuntu camper, I haven't booted into my Windows install in months now.

I did however miss MS Works, so I installed it and Judy's Ten Key Calculator
http://www.judysapps.com/
in wine. Works has a very simple spread sheet calculate function (tools, Easy Calc) that works very well to estimate costs for jobs in my business. In one column I type what an item is, in the next I type the cost. When I have everything entered I just drag down the money column and click "Sum" and it's all totaled up. I can then mark it up and enter the result in my quote and delete the original file. Quick and simple.

In Open Office I have to type out a formula and it takes forever. I saved a spreadsheet and tried to do it that way, but you have to go down the column and delete the values, and then do the entries, and it's sort of a poky way to go about it.

Is there a quick and easy way to sum a column in Open Office?

Thanks!

[Jorophose]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

watching DVDs on a linux OS is considered a crime in the states.

Ya what? You are joking?

Sometimes perhaps living in the UK isn't so bad after all...

Nope, unless the americans have been lying to me, AGAIN. First with the hyppopatumous on the moon, now this...

In Canada it's perfectly legal. Thank the gods of the dice... I'll have to double check, though, to see if movie-downloading is legal, too. I get mixed results. I think it's just uploading that's illegal, which is pretty smart of the gv't, because it allows us to be free, and kills unwanted downloading, too.

But the real reason I love it: I can stick it to iTune's ripoff prices. Only 0.10$ of the money goes to the artist! I'd rather send the poor fello cash via paypal than go through iTunes.

I'm sure the UK, and most of Europe, allows DVD playing on free systems. Last I checked it's just the Americans who have problems with that.

[aysiu]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

There is one exception to the rule: Linspire has legal DVD playing licenses for its users.

[obnascar]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

It is very difficult to convert people over to Linux when Microsoft Windows is the only thing they have used, after using it for years and years they are comfortable using it. Most people have a problem with change. I have a feeling if 99 per cent of computers users started out with Linux, Microsoft would have a hard time getting those same people to use Microsoft Windows, that is just the way it is !

Among all the good things mentioned above, there is one thing left for me to comment on and that is the Windows "registry".

Mess with the registry and if you do not know what you are doing, or do not know how to back-up and restore the registry, the next thing you are doing is a reinstall.

Some user's would purchase third party software to clean up the registry, if they didn't, over time normal user's would soon experience their OS getting bogged down and in some case almost useless.

I have been using Linux for two years and I do not miss the "registry" at all.

[javierrivera]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

Is there a quick and easy way to sum a column in Open Office?

Wayyyyyyy Offf Topic.

Select all the colum (I mean, click on the first cell and drag to the last). Look at the botton left edge of the screen, at the bar below the last cell. You will see there something like Sum=xxx.xx.

Well, that xxx.xx is yout sum. Quick enought?

Javier.

[javierrivera]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

There is one exception to the rule: Linspire has legal DVD playing licenses for its users.

The payed versions of Mandriva also do.

Javier.

[Jorophose]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

There is one exception to the rule: Linspire has legal DVD playing licenses for its users.

Linspire is, and always will be, an exception to every rule ;P

@obnascar: Too bad the great majority of windows users are nothing but drones, who don't want to change. Sad to see the computer world be flushed down the toilet like that.

[dibl]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

My reason for transitioning to Linux -- I want to be the exclusive owner/operator of MY computer. (As I recall, I was the exclusive buyer of my computer and it's erstwhile Microsoft OS!). Only a person who has tried to connect the third internal hard drive to his Win XP system (just for a backup), and ended up on the phone to India getting re-authenticated really understands how deep Microsoft's hooks go into "YOUR" computer.

Obstacles to leaving Win-World:
1. Little USB devices. I've actually shortened the list of non-communicating devices down to my Motorola Razr phone. I'm not sure it will ever talk to Linux
2. My 10-year old, 62,000 person genealogy database, which runs on a Foxpro data engine. I put a Win4Lin virtual machine on my Linux box, and it works OK that way. Too bad the world's best genealogy application was written that way, but I understand ...
3. Motherboard & BIOS utilities for tweaking/flashing my Intel hardware -- no known Linux work-around.
4. That quaint little command-line interface, aka "console". Microsoft figured out long ago that was a sales-killer. It really needs to go hide out of sight, for occasional use by geeks only ...

That's my two cents' worth

[javierrivera]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

4. That quaint little command-line interface, aka "console". Microsoft figured out long ago that was a sales-killer. It really needs to go hide out of sight, for occasional use by geeks only ...

It's quite strange, but now Microsoft seens to think exactly the oposite.

The console is one of the things that are greatly imporved in Vista.

Javier.

[Jorophose]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

Who would buy Vista for the crappy DOS-based console?

Linux's command line is much better (apt-get & emerge anyone?), and it's 100% free.

[beast2k]

Re: Linux: simply a novelty?

I can't think of anything I can do with Linux (any distro) that I can't do with windows.

For me, this has absolutely nothing to do with it. In fact, I've spent quite a lot of time and effort in the last two years trying to do just the opposite - get all the functionality of Windows (and associated apps) in GNU/Linux.

Basically, it boils down to the fact that I resent Microsoft's use of it's monopoly power to lock people into it's software. I don't like feeling forced. Some of their software is actually quite good, but I refuse to use it simply because they insist on trying to shove it down my throat.

I have no problem whatsoever with closed source software, or with people charging money for software. I do, however, have a huge problem with a monopoly creating formats that can ONLY work 100% correctly when you use their software. This has always been MS' marketing strategy and always will be. MSN messenger, windows media player, internet explorer, powerpoint, word... the list goes on forever. All of these products have a stranglehold on their respective markets because of the proprietary formats that are de facto standards.

And how did those formats get to be de facto standards? Because the MS OS makes it very VERY easy to use them. Not only that, but they make it mildly annoying to use anything else. How many people, when first installing XP, have been driven nearly insane in trying to prevent windows messenger from appearing - begging you to use it? You tell it not to run on start-up, easy enough. Then, you open Outlook Express and there it is again! So, you try to kill it and it informs you that another process is using it and it cannot be shut down, etc etc. This is how all MS software works. It's all intertwined, interlocked and integrated in a huge web that is difficult to get free of.

In any event, a person could go on for days about what a PoS MS is. There's no point in that since a million other people have already done so... all over the web. The frustrating part, for me, is that the average computer user just doesn't see this. Perhaps because MS continually lulls them to sleep with sweet marketing words?

"Don't try anything new, it'll just be too difficult to change...

"Why change when what you have works fine...?"

"Our products are really quite secure, don't let those Linux kooks tell you different, they're weirdos, computer geeks, trying to scare you into using their inferior products..."

And BTW, Apple is no better than MS. Worse in fact - like getting out of the frying pan and into the fire. Imagine if MS had not crushed them early on? Instead of just using a garbage OS, we'd be using a garbage OS *and* rubbish hardware.

Your post is by far the most accurate and dead on the money post I have ever had the pleasure to read, well said my friend.