Lang Murphy said:
<snip>
Yes, there are good things about nix...
<snip>
Yes, there are places where nix fails...
From my perspective, which maps very much to your perspective, nix
requires -too much time- of it's user to get things working as expected.
I'm playing around with Ubuntu 7.04 right now. There appears to be pretty
good support in alt.os.linux.ubuntu, but, like here, depends on who
responds to one's queries. No doubt my view is slanted by being one of
those folks who, pretty much, has no problems with Vista. Sure, I've got
my one or two nits that I don't like about Vista, but, generally, I'm a
happy camper.
All that said... ultimately, no pun intended, one must spend a fair amount
of time learning nix's different way of doing things. If one is willing to
invest the time, from what I've read, there are few things that nix won't
do that Windows can. Can't comment on the gaming aspect... not a gamer.
But if one is a gamer, and that support happens to be, in fact, one of the
major deficiencies of nix, then, no doubt, I can see that as being a major
road block to moving to nix as a desktop replacement for Windows.
Like yourself, I like to keep an open mind on nix and dip my toes into the
nix pool every couple of years, just to see how things are progressing. I
think some folks may take your indictment of nix as an indication that
you're closed minded. Well... you never would have come to the conclusions
you did, without having attempted using a nix distro. Whether you invested
as much time as nix fans might deem appropriate, is beyond me. No doubt
this thread will generate plenty of replies from that camp, given the
number of nix aficionados who hang out in this ng.
Thanks for the detailed post; appreciated!
Lang
I'm a technological agnostic, so I go for what works and runs well. I am a
dual-booter. (Vista/Mandriva & XP/Ubuntu Studio) That said, I do identify
with the author of this forum, although I won't get into dismissing Linux
the way he seems to do. I try to keep an open mind, so...
I've been fooling around with Linux for 3 to 4 months now. Ubuntu IS easy
and I've learned a lot from it. And while I am grateful to Ubuntu for
helping me enter the Linux world, I must say this in all honesty: Ubuntu is
UgLy!! (Studio is a lot better) Please, get a web designer in here fast, a
color coordinator, anything !! And for those who love the 'Eye Candy'
argument, since when do people NOT care how their OS looks and operates? It
IS important, especially if I'm staring at it for 2+ hours a day. Sure, I
can customize my desktop in Ubuntu Feisty, but there's only so far one can
go unless you use Compiz or Beryl, and that software is still very much in
the beta phase.
I believe the predicament of Linux is not entirely Linux's fault - in other
words, combine an Open Source Philosophy with a free market and mix in
intellectual property and stock shareholders and you get Linux's justified
feeling of alienation from a market that only cooperates when it has profits
coming in as a result. As a result, most hardware developers have no
interests in sharing vital information with driver developers in the Linux
community. So developers must sometimes work backwards to develop drivers
for Linux and that takes ......time.
That said, Linux has a long way to go to satisfy my needs as a professional.
I'm a professional musician/publisher and so I use many different functions
that cater to musicians/publishers. And the nature of technology is to be on
the cutting edge, to offer things that one has Not been able to do before.
Here are some of my functions that Linux as yet cannot supply:
1) I use Finale to do music notation and write charts on my computer. I've
tried to get Finale/Midi configured for this in Ubuntu Fesity and others
have as well. We have not found any solutions thus far. There ARE music
notation programs for Ubuntu, but they look cheesy and amateurish in
comparison to Finale. Charts ARE about looks and presentation, and anyone
who claims that other music notation programs can come close to doing what
Finale does simply does not know what they are talking about.
2) I use my computer for Pro Audio and use Sonar 6 Producer Edition on XP.
Linux has Ardour 2.0 which looks impressive. But the quality of plugins
cannot even come close to what I get with my Waves Audio Plugins, which are
used by many professionals in the business. I have tinkered with Ardour and
found that I'd be searching the web night and day to find half-way suitable
plugins, and even then I question that. I hold a little bit of a grudge
against the author of Ardour because I made a generous donation and got no
thank you whatsoever - no acknowledgement of my gift or anything. And yes, I
wrote him about that directly. I don't care who you are. One should say
'Thank You' when they receive a gift.
Open Office did say 'Thank You' to me and for that, they will probably
receive more money from me in the future.
3) I do OnCD printing for many of my projects. Turboprint for Linux actually
supplies this driver now and I bought it as well. However, I asked
Turboprint what program to use here (thinking templates etc) and they could
only suggest Gimp and Open Draw. With no templates I'd be shooting in the
dark for half a day and wasting CDs in order get the printing aligned
right, not to mention lack of color/resolution control.
4) Turboprint recently completed making the driver for my Epson RX580, but
as yet they cannot support the scanner function of this Epson model. While I
AM grateful that they have made a driver for this (I bought it remember?),
supporting half a product is kind of typical in Linux.
5) I can get Flash MX to work in Linux through CrossOver but my project is
more advanced and requires at least Flash Studio MX 2004. That version will
not run on CrossOver, nor will other, more recent versions.
I really could add more but I hope my point comes through. I really do like
Linux and for the record, I think Mandriva is just as easy as Ubuntu Feisty
to use and is a LOT better looking. I dual-boot with Vista/Mandriva on my
desktop at this point, although I did have to relocate my modem and go in
wired to the internet as a result. I have yet to get my wireless Linksys
WMP300N to work with Mandriva (or Ubuntu for that matter).
Thanks to anyone who read this long post,...Frank B.
www.frankbright.com
