Caught the show

Post by **Patrick** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:07 pm

mijohnst wrote:One of you said that Windows was harder to install because you have to go and find drivers for it. That might be a really old version of Windows, but anymore all the drivers come bundled with a generic driver to at least get every device working. You can't really compare Windows 98SE to Fedora C4... It would be better to compare Windows 98SE to Redhat 5 because they were both out around the same time and if we all remember, drivers back there were not existent or a pain in the ass for Linux as well.

I installed WindowsXP (service pack 2) on a home built box thats built on a MSI mini-atx motherboard. I had to download several drivers from the manufacturer because the generic windows drivers either sucked ass or didn't work at all. I need to have 1 windows drive in order to access my work environment from home. At work we're using this proprietary VPN package. It does not work under wine or crossover office. If it wasn't for this work requirement I wouldn't have any windows running at all.

Now the same box installed without any issues with FC3. It all worked straight out of the box in under an hour. That's the reality. No bullshit!

I got my wife using linux more and more. She still goes into windows for a few things and more often than not the majority of her complaints are directed at windows. My dad finally got a broadband connection for his vanilla Dell box running WindowsXP. I can't wait for him to give me the green light to wipe it out and install linux. It's only a matter of time till his system becomes unusable. I'll probably put Mepis or Ubuntu on it.

Post by **Patrick** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:13 pm

dann wrote: I don't think any modern distro, geared towards the desktop user, should come cripled! There is no reason why mp3, video codec and flash support should not be included by default. It's plain stoopid and unneccessary to make me manually add respositories and then have to hunt down the necessary packages. I respect the desire to promote open technologies, but not including mp3 in Fedora or Ubuntu is not going to increase ogg usage when a simple addition to the repository fixes that.

This should be part of the install. Do you want mp3 support? Ok, understand these licensing agreements. Do you want video codecs? Understand these licensing agreements. Do you want flash support? Ok understand these licensing agreements.

Very valid points Dan. It's very annoying when you have to go hunt down codecs for mp3, flash and others. The software nazis tend to inconvenience the rest of us. The 2 distros that don't have this issue are Linspire & Mepis. Both are geared towards noobies.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:14 pm

Pat is right on here. If you stick with windoze default video drivers, for example, you will get software rendering, which sucks the big one. Additionally, I think I can safely say that every motherboard has specific drivers that need to be installed, that are updated way more often than microsoft keeps up. Then there are the mixing controls that typically come with sound hardware, since windoze has a really bad sound mixer interface, and so on.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:27 pm

dann wrote: This should be part of the install. Do you want mp3 support? Ok, understand these licensing agreements. Do you want video codecs? Understand these licensing agreements. Do you want flash support? Ok understand these licensing agreements.

Apparently, asking these sort of questions during installation is dis-orientanting to MS-Windows users, from the comments I've read.

The computer asking questions seem to make things difficult, rather than easy, for them for some reason.

If memory serves (it's been a while since doing a new install of it myself), I believe Kanotix is another distro that supports this from default. However, I don't watch DVDs on my PC, so I can't comment on that aspect.

The only thing I remember having to install myself was "lame", so I could rip CDs to MP3.

learnix · Post by **learnix** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:48 pm

mijohnst wrote: Using yum is awesome too. It resolves dependencies and installs and that's exactly what people want. Something easy to install and upgrade. The only drawback is if you have a system that does not have external access you'll have to download all the RPM's and updates to a directory somewhere on your hard drive (taking up a few gigs) and create a repository. Sadly, I don't have any experience with apt-get. I would continue to argue that putting in a CD and clicking setup.exe file for an update is still easier then either yum or apt-get because you don't have to set it up to make it work right.

Every install I have ever done with windows I have had to connect to the Internet and download several Megs of updates. And almost every other software package I installed I have had to do the same. In some instances the update was larger than the program itself. How is that any diff. You still need to download the update on your local computer (basically creating a repository) so you can install them.

mijohnst wrote: Windows is just a better system for low-end users because you don't have to think...you just click.

That is like saying McDonalds is better for you cause it quick and fast. You don't have to make food you just drive thru.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 6:33 pm

learnix wrote:That is like saying McDonalds is better for you cause it quick and fast. You don't have to make food you just drive thru.

Haha... Well, some people know how to cook and some people are better off out of the kitchen... ;p

learnix · Post by **learnix** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 7:03 pm

Anonymous wrote:
learnix wrote:That is like saying McDonalds is better for you cause it quick and fast. You don't have to make food you just drive thru.
Haha... Well, some people know how to cook and some people are better off out of the kitchen... ;p

LOL, touche

CptnObvious999 · Post by **CptnObvious999** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 7:57 pm

dann wrote: I'm going to smack around synaptic because that is the only one I am really familiar with. Synaptic has a category view which helps to narrow the search but I don't see a need for there to be three different headings per category. The general user does not care or want a games, games (non-free), games (universe) etc. They just want games.

I don't think apps should cross over in categories, that is if I am searching through the games listings I should not see game development tools, libraries for creating specific types of games, etc. Just as I would expect to not see xevil in the development listings.

I still stand behind the idea that wizards should be included in these applications. The first time I start synpatic it should explain the software and then ask me if I want to add additional repositories, particularly if those repositories are not enable by default. Explain why universe and multivers are not included by default. Give me the choice to enable these right from the get go.

They are seperated for good reason, universal is for applications that have been tested but are not supported, non-free is for applications that are not open-source, and im not sure what multiverse is but im sure it has a good reason to be seperate

dann wrote:I don't think any modern distro, geared towards the desktop user, should come cripled! There is no reason why mp3, video codec and flash support should not be included by default. It's plain stoopid and unneccessary to make me manually add respositories and then have to hunt down the necessary packages. I respect the desire to promote open technologies, but not including mp3 in Fedora or Ubuntu is not going to increase ogg usage when a simple addition to the repository fixes that.

This should be part of the install. Do you want mp3 support? Ok, understand these licensing agreements. Do you want video codecs? Understand these licensing agreements. Do you want flash support? Ok understand these licensing agreements.

Well they should but I think there are some legal issues that I don't know about. IANAL

mrben · Post by **mrben** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 3:12 am

CptnObvious999 wrote:Well they should but I think there are some legal issues that I don't know about. IANAL

Indeed there are legal issues. MP3 is a patented encoding format and thus none of the distros that are owned by companies include it in their free editions, although some include it in the pay-for box-sets. Likewise for DVD playback, and a number of other codecs.

It's a well documented problem, and all distros include well documented resolutions.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:29 pm

mijohnst wrote: One of you said that Windows was harder to install because you have to go and find drivers for it. That might be a really old version of Windows, but anymore all the drivers come bundled with a generic driver to at least get every device working. You can't really compare Windows 98SE to Fedora C4... It would be better to compare Windows 98SE to Redhat 5 because they were both out around the same time and if we all remember, drivers back there were not existent or a pain in the ass for Linux as well.

This would be a valid point in a perfect world where everyone had a complete copy of the newest version of Windows. I have to install Win98SE and then upgrade. The only alternative is to spend $200 I don't want to spend.

And you're also wrong about drivers. I can't use my ethernet card or video card without drivers that are NOT INCLUDED in Windows XP. Those drivers have been in Fedora since FC2. That's reality from personal experience.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:46 pm

Gomer_X wrote:And you're also wrong about drivers. I can't use my ethernet card or video card without drivers that are NOT INCLUDED in Windows XP. Those drivers have been in Fedora since FC2. That's reality from personal experience.

From whatever side your looking from, you're going to have drives that come bundled with Windows that Linux doesn't have and vise versa. To expect that any OS has every driver for every component is just silly... I'm simply suggesting that Windows has a much bigger pool of bundled drivers for Plug-n-Play.

I could be wrong... but I've only been wrong one time and it was this time about thinking that I was wrong when I was really right...

mijohnst · Post by **mijohnst** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:48 pm

Hey Dann... can you turn off the "guest posting" option so stupid people like me don't post messages without logging in...