Anticipation that a Linux Desktop is a easy swap replacement for Windows Desktop is simply a matter of expectations. It is what it is and where it is any given place in time. Railing here on this list is the equivalent to pissing in the wind.
The thread began with issues relating to proprietary software using proprietary codecs and if more people were using Linux, there would be more pressure to adopt codecs that Linux users could utilize without doing technical tango.
As you said, "It is what it is" and that seems to apply to the proprietary codecs also. The mplayer developers have done a marvelous job integrating the windows codecs. Searching out this information is non-trivial (without some luck) and difficult for the uninitiated. This mailing list has a pretty good cross section of current Fedora users and has some extremely intelligent and knowledgeable people on it.
It may well be that since software installation does and should require some sort of administrative account (eg. root) and putting the root account in the hands of the uneducated can be a terrible thing, a different model is needed to further encroach upon Windows.
Bob Styma
On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 10:50 -0600, STYMA, ROBERT E (ROBERT) wrote:
Anticipation that a Linux Desktop is a easy swap replacement for Windows Desktop is simply a matter of expectations. It is what it is and where it is any given place in time. Railing here on this list is the equivalent to pissing in the wind.
The thread began with issues relating to proprietary software using proprietary codecs and if more people were using Linux, there would be more pressure to adopt codecs that Linux users could utilize without doing technical tango.
As you said, "It is what it is" and that seems to apply to the proprietary codecs also. The mplayer developers have done a marvelous job integrating the windows codecs. Searching out this information is non-trivial (without some luck) and difficult for the uninitiated. This mailing list has a pretty good cross section of current Fedora users and has some extremely intelligent and knowledgeable people on it.
---- It's a moving target. Microsoft has released WMP v 10 and has changed some things - as those who are committed to keeping proprietary lock-in are wont to do. ----
It may well be that since software installation does and should require some sort of administrative account (eg. root) and putting the root account in the hands of the uneducated can be a terrible thing, a different model is needed to further encroach upon Windows.
---- people can learn. It happens all of the time. I myself am not invested in converting the masses to Linux, when Linux is ready for them and they are ready for Linux, they will find each other.
Craig
STYMA, ROBERT E (ROBERT) schrieb:
As you said, "It is what it is" and that seems to apply to the proprietary codecs also. The mplayer developers have done a marvelous job integrating the windows codecs. Searching out this information is non-trivial (without some luck) and difficult for the uninitiated. This mailing list has a pretty good cross section of current Fedora users and has some extremely intelligent and knowledgeable people on it.
It may well be that since software installation does and should require some sort of administrative account (eg. root) and putting the root account in the hands of the uneducated can be a terrible thing, a different model is needed to further encroach upon Windows.
There is nothing wrong with that and a big advantage at a school. Windows boxes usually rot away within minutes, because everybody can install anything wherever they want, they do not need to be root/administrator to do that. And that's wrong.
I even would advocate running Windows only on VMWare in institutions like that.
Regards Markus Huber
Markus Huber wrote:
There is nothing wrong with that and a big advantage at a school. Windows boxes usually rot away within minutes, because everybody can install anything wherever they want, they do not need to be root/administrator to do that. And that's wrong.
Caution: there is nothing special about the root-only-writable /usr/* for compiling, installing and running stuff. I was surprised to see Opera running on the Fedora laptop my stepson uses a few months ago... he just downloaded the binaries, unpacked them in /home and ran them. Similarly he has compiled .tar.gz's in /home himself and run the executable in-place.
You can mount /home noexec I guess, but assuming that a typical Linux box is much better in the "root must install" respect is wrong.
-Andy
On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 19:07 +0000, Andy Green wrote:
Markus Huber wrote:
There is nothing wrong with that and a big advantage at a school. Windows boxes usually rot away within minutes, because everybody can install anything wherever they want, they do not need to be root/administrator to do that. And that's wrong.
Caution: there is nothing special about the root-only-writable /usr/* for compiling, installing and running stuff. I was surprised to see Opera running on the Fedora laptop my stepson uses a few months ago... he just downloaded the binaries, unpacked them in /home and ran them. Similarly he has compiled .tar.gz's in /home himself and run the executable in-place.
You can mount /home noexec I guess, but assuming that a typical Linux box is much better in the "root must install" respect is wrong.
true pretty much any user can install pretty much anything they want and run it locally from their home directory, but so what. It doesn't affect the system as a whole. That program he/she installs will only run as their user and since they have no rights they can not affect the system. So even if they trash their user account they don;t affect other users and you can always just recreate their account and give them a good scolding :)
-Andy
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On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 19:07 +0000, Andy Green wrote:
assuming that a typical Linux box is much better in the "root must install" respect is wrong
I suppose that's one where the intent is correct (the Linux notion of doing that way is much better), but you'd better make sure that your system actually works that way.
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Andy Green -
Craig White -
Markus Huber -
Styma, Robert E (Robert) -
Tim -
tlc