The IT industry is shifting away from Micro$oft

[leech]

Sasq; You still have some trouble with USB devices? I can name at least one that works better in linux. My Smart Media Card reader from Zio. In windows, unless I specifically unmount it, then plug it in again, it won't read the card. So much for hotpluggable. I should just be able to take it out, then put it back in at any time and the OS should pick up on it. Linux does. Every time.

I have quite a few USB devices and hey all work wonderfully under linux.

Leech

[Sasq]

Admitidly I don't fret too much about them as most of my life is spent ssh'ing into a box that I can't even see.

[DukeP]

USB just isnt.

Got a quite nice looking mp3 player as a christmas gift (The Nike/Phillips psa max 128). It feels great, sounds great and is very good at what its meant to be good at (its meant to be used while excercising).

Its USB software/driver implementation reminds me of the hassle of my first printer port scanner.

2 reboots of winxp needed. System still vaguely unstable when plugged in (can crash any and all other USB devices - requiring a reboot).

Doesnt work through my hub, only works when plugged directly into the back of my computer (first thing that doesnt work through my hub, my printer, mouse, keyboard, cardreader, camera, webcam all work through my hub).

The speed of the transfer is horrible as well.

Ach.

At the price of this object, its quite amazing that more energy couldnt have been placed in the development of a simple driver.

~~DukeP~~

[cjolley]

Originally posted by leech
Yeah, but if we're talking Joe Average here... He doesn't know about Firebird. (I also use Firebird extensively on Windows. I get pissed off when people use web code that only works properly under IE).

<sarcasm>But you can't use Firebird! It's Open Source, and that's like a virus in the almighty Bill Gates' view!</sarcasm>

Leech

LOL, if Joe can't get Firebird working in Windows, how the heck is he going to get ANYTHING new working in Linux?
Joe is simply NEVER going to get anything he downloads from the net installed and working unless his distribution vendor sets up the package.
So, he's stuck with one vendor anyway.
chuck

[The PIT]

Originally posted by cjolley
LOL, if Joe can't get Firebird working in Windows, how the heck is he going to get ANYTHING new working in Linux?
Joe is simply NEVER going to get anything he downloads from the net installed and working unless his distribution vendor sets up the package.
So, he's stuck with one vendor anyway.
chuck

He'd get stuck on the unpacking the tarball.
Then he'd be baffled by the libraries he also needs install.
Then he'd be baffled by the fact theres no icon on his desktop

[DukeP]

What desktop?

You mean the prompt??

That CAN be an icon in of it self...



~~DukeP~~

[Gurm]

NO NO NO YOU'RE ALL WRONG.

LINUX IS EASY!

EASY EASY EASY!

MY GRANDMOTHER LEARNED HOW TO USE IT! IT ONLY TOOK ELECTROSHOCKS AND 8 YEARS, BUT SHE LEARNED! IT WAS EASY!

WINDOWS IS DOG SHIT!

BILL GATES IS EVIL! YOU MUST USE LINUX NOW!

- Gurm

[albatorsk]

Originally posted by The PIT
He'd get stuck on the unpacking the tarball.

Yeah, that mouse thingy is a real pain to use.

Then he'd be baffled by the libraries he also needs install.

Except that all components of the Mozilla family are self contained.

Then he'd be baffled by the fact theres no icon on his desktop

Yeah, that's probably the big showstopper. If only there was a way to put an icon on the desktop....

[albatorsk]

Originally posted by Gurm
NO NO NO YOU'RE ALL WRONG.

LINUX IS EASY!

EASY EASY EASY!

MY GRANDMOTHER LEARNED HOW TO USE IT! IT ONLY TOOK ELECTROSHOCKS AND 8 YEARS, BUT SHE LEARNED! IT WAS EASY!

WINDOWS IS DOG SHIT!

BILL GATES IS EVIL! YOU MUST USE LINUX NOW!

- Gurm

Thank you for another insightful post.

[Technoid]

hm....I'm currently Installing Gentoo on my laptop and atm all installing has been "emerge *****" and the app gets downloaded compailed and installed

extremely hard

[albatorsk]

Originally posted by The PIT
Rubbish unless your six months behind the latest hardware. Somehow most hardware manufactures don't write linux drivers or if they do it's only for one distro.

Rubbish statment. *Some* hardware isn't supported until several months after it's been released. Some is instantaneously. Some hardware isn't fully supported in Windows either until several months after release. A specific video card comes to mind.

Redhat 9.0 in it's orginal release didn't properly support the network card on the Intel 875p chipset. I had to put another network card so I could upgrade the kernal.

And the relation to Knoppix is...?
I've had to manually install drivers for other hardware in Windows too. It doesn't really mean anything.

9800 Pro although claimed to be supported was listed an an unknown device. Got that working now with the last driver release from ATI.

I hope you sent a letter of complaint to Red Hat. They still list the 9800 as supported in their HCL. It doesn't say anything about the 9800 Pro, though, but I assume it's the same chip.

I've had Mandrake that didn't support promise controllers months after the release of the hardware. Yes Promise had drivers for Redhat only.

Oh the joys of binary modules. Hardly Mandraks fault, though.

Still things are a lot better than they used to be and it's getting easier to find work arounds. May have a go at repairing my Redhat sometime this week it's gone funny after the last bios upgrade. Dunno whats happened unless it doesn't like 256mb of agp set in the bios.

What are the symptoms? Maybe I can help.

PS. Sorry for being belittleing, but the ignorance based Linux-bashing in this thread is just overwhelming.

[cjolley]

Originally posted by albatorsk

...
What are the symptoms? Maybe I can help.

PS. Sorry for being belittleing, but the ignorance based Linux-bashing in this thread is just overwhelming.

My entire point is that moving from Windows to Linux is not cost effective for a medium-large organization.
It has nothing to do with whether Linux is good or bad.
I think it's cool.
I've installed it many times.
As a hobby.

I assume you are not offering to do these things free of charge:
1, Convert 500,000 lines of db front end code to something Linux can understand.
Our tools are mostly OS agnostic, but we will need help with some direct os API calls and testing.*
One tool we use a lot IS tied to windows, so we will need some re-training to some other tool.
Testing will take months as there are billions of dollars a stake.
*Oops I forgot our in-house scanning apps, those will have to be rewritten from scratch.
2, Walk around with our techs for a few months while they learn the new system.
3, Our DBSs will need to be trained on the new OS.
...
The list just goes on and on.

For this change we will pay vast amounts of MONEY and gain nothing.
And our ongoing costs will be higher, because pay scales for *nix people is higher than for windows people all the way across the board.

The idea that there is going to be a mass exodus from windows to linux for offices is just silly.
Especialy the idea that it will be driven by the "lower cost" of Linux.
OS and general wp/email app costs are just not a big enough percentage of the full system cost to overcome the higher day to day costs of Linux.
And no where near enough to pay for a conversion.

chuck

PS There is hope for the future though: Office applications (general not MS) are moving to web based 3 tier systems.
This offers hope for Linux in the future.
Even I can set up a Linux box to get to the web.

[albatorsk]

Originally posted by cjolley
My entire point is that moving from Windows to Linux is not cost effective for a medium-large organization.

I assume you are not offering to do these things free of charge:
1, Convert 500,000 lines of db front end code to something Linux can understand.
Our tools are mostly OS agnostic, but we will need help with some direct os API calls and testing.*
One tool we use a lot IS tied to windows, so we will need some re-training to some other tool.
Testing will take months as there are billions of dollars a stake.
*Oops I forgot our in-house scanning apps, those will have to be rewritten from scratch.
2, Walk around with our techs for a few months while they learn the new system.
3, Our DBSs will need to be trained on the new OS.
...
The list just goes on and on.

Of course, money has to be spent if there is to be a change. Nothing's free in business. But why change to Linux for the sake of just chaning OS? What would you gain by doing that? IT's pretty obvious Linux isn't for you or your company, but for a lot of others that want to cut some corners, it is the holy graal.

For this change we will pay vast amounts of MONEY and gain nothing.
And our ongoing costs will be higher, because pay scales for *nix people is higher than for windows people all the way across the board.

Of course.

The idea that there is going to be a mass exodus from windows to linux for offices is just silly.
Especialy the idea that it will be driven by the "lower cost" of Linux.

Are you looking in your tarot cards or your crystal ball? I don't think it's silly at all. It actually makes sense. *nix, and X, is network transparent by design so deploying Linux in a server/client environment make things just so much easier.

OS and general wp/email app costs are just not a big enough percentage of the full system cost to overcome the higher day to day costs of Linux.
And no where near enough to pay for a conversion.

But what about when the company's IT structure is due for a real overhaul? Why not take the chance aand move to a cheaper alternative while you're at it? Several companies I've consulted has done this, and it works just fine.

[Gurm]

No Chuck... you see it's CHEAPER.

Because it's FREE!

You don't need anyone to teach you, unless you're a ****ing retard.

You just install it. It works every time, straight out of the box. You never have to tweak anything.

And all that Windows code will run 100% flawlessly with any of a dozen "windows emulators" out right now.

- Gurm

P.S. I'm being sarcastic.

P.P.S. Hey, Albatross - don't go butting in halfway through an argument only to call my DRIPPINGLY SARCASTIC posts "insightful", or not. Ok? Retard.

[albatorsk]

Originally posted by Gurm
No Chuck... you see it's CHEAPER.

Because it's FREE!

You don't need anyone to teach you, unless you're a ****ing retard.

You just install it. It works every time, straight out of the box. You never have to tweak anything.

And all that Windows code will run 100% flawlessly with any of a dozen "windows emulators" out right now.

- Gurm

P.S. I'm being sarcastic.

P.P.S. Hey, Albatross - don't go butting in halfway through an argument only to call my DRIPPINGLY SARCASTIC posts "insightful", or not. Ok? Retard.

**** you too.