Anybody here use Linux?

GPAN and fetchnews are the oly way to go if your stuck with an expensive
dialup account like me. sniff sniff ah the wonders of non socialist
economies.

Rod

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 02:16:07 +0200, Jim Strand wrote:

Xref: Darius.jets.gr alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt:1026

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 18:49:32 GMT, "GlueGum" wrote:

If I ask this question at a Linux ng, they'll say XP sucks. If I ask at
an XP ng, they'll say Linux sucks.

From what I've read Mandrake is the best for desktop apps and for
newbies (like me). I've been using windows since 3.11(currently XP
home) and was wondering if anybody here uses Linux, and how does it
compare to XP?

Yup, but if you check the headers here you'll see I'm on Windows. Some
programs like Agent are superior to anything I've found yet on Mandrake
9.2. However Mozilla e-mail and browser seem to beat Eudora and IE
respectively.

Nice to have both!

Man that is really sad. My ten year old uses linux and xp- guess which he
likes better. Can't beat enlightenment for eye-candy.

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 03:28:03 +0200, ray hartman wrote:

Xref: Darius.jets.gr alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt:1035

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 18:49:32 +0000, GlueGum wrote:

If I ask this question at a Linux ng, they'll say XP sucks. If I ask
at an XP ng, they'll say Linux sucks.

From what I've read Mandrake is the best for desktop apps and for
newbies (like me). I've been using windows since 3.11(currently XP
home) and was wondering if anybody here uses Linux, and how does it
compare to XP?

BigGG:

Any *nix is sure a PITA. Figure on 2-3 years climbing the learning
curve, and then you will still know nothing ( but will demonstrate many
amuzing byteboyz_type skills ). You will NOT be a better person. Sound
like a waste of time?

Sure would be, except for M$$oft gropy paws trying to own yer azzwhole.
Hollyweird & the Feds, too ... same folks, actually, but you know that.
SOOOOOO. How else -- beside *nix -- ta bi*chslap Unkil Bill$$ and teach
him manners?

on Tue January 27 2004 5:13 am, BarryNL decided to enlighten us with:

And one with a Sesame Street level grasp of politics. Schroder actually
won an election on an anti-US platform and she thinks France was more
against the US! The US just decided that it could afford a fall out with
France more than it could with Germany or Russia and so painted France
as the main opponent. Anyone who takes this 'I boycott French products
but not German/Russian' might as well just buy an 'IQ80' hat and be
done with it.

First of all, any proof of this wild speculation of yours?

Second of all, it's well documented the great lengths France went to try and
prevent us from going forward. Germany and Russia did nothing but vote
against us. France went well beyond that.

Third, I do not only boycott French products, but I make a solid attempt at
avoiding any products from any of them. However, sometimes you can't
prevent it. There aren't any real desktop Linux alternatives. Fedora is too
young and Red Hat abandoned us.

Lastly, I'm not trying to make this into a political discussion at all. I
just stated my reasons for not going with Mandrake Linux and that was that.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
10:56pm up 1 day 13:31, 2 users, load average: 0.29, 0.32, 0.14

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

"Matt" wrote in message
...
Ruel Smith (Big Daddy) wrote:

Lastly, I do agree that for Linux to really hit the mainstream it needs
to
solve the latest/greatest hardware problem. OEM's need to step up to the
plate. I think the corporate desktop boom that'll probably happen the
next
2 to 3 years will certainly help, but I think mainstream Linux is at
least
5 years away in getting really good OEM driver support for hardware.

When linux reaches a certain market share (5% ?), hardware makers will not
be able to ignore it. They will hire linux hackers for peanuts to write
good drivers (Nvidia is already grabbing about all of the linux video card
market by building a good linux driver).

Yeah right! I had the pleasure of installing the Linux Nvidia drivers to
Mandrake 9.2 tonight.

What a pain in the ass, I decided to remove Linux altogether from my system,
guess what, it's like a virus, harder than hell to remove.

It has you jumping thru hoops for what should be an easy task.

Linux sux big time.

Dashi



By then the Open
Office and other basic application software will be much better. That is
when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.

The average computer user is not going to use Linux as an operating system.
To archaic and not intutitive at all.

Dashi

"Matt" wrote in message
...
JAD wrote:
Office and other basic application software will be much better. That
is when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.

5 years and windows will be buried? matt you are the optimist


"Matt" wrote in message
...

Ruel Smith (Big Daddy) wrote:


Lastly, I do agree that for Linux to really hit the mainstream it needs
to
solve the latest/greatest hardware problem. OEM's need to step up to the
plate. I think the corporate desktop boom that'll probably happen the
next
2 to 3 years will certainly help, but I think mainstream Linux is at
least
5 years away in getting really good OEM driver support for hardware.

When linux reaches a certain market share (5% ?), hardware makers will
not be able to ignore it. They will hire linux hackers for peanuts to
write good drivers (Nvidia is already grabbing about all of the linux
video card market by building a good linux driver). By then the Open
Office and other basic application software will be much better. That
is when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.


I don't think it's unrealistic to expect something like a steep sigmoid
curve for linux market share. Maybe 25% of computers are replaced each
year. If half of those buyers switch from Windows to Linux, that is about
a 10% annual gain. My crystal ball indicates something like:

2007 5%
2008 8%
2009 12%
2010 20%
2011 30%
2012 40%
2013 49%
2014 57%
2015 64%
2016 70%
2017 74%
2018 77%
2019 79%

These numbers are extremely speculative. Can somebody point to some
reliable statistics on the the growth of linux?

"Anon" wrote in message
s.com...
In other words, pay a hundred bucks for a sixty buck drive, mail in the
rebate, do EVERYTHING RIGHT, get the rebate rejected, end up paying
forty
bucks more than you should. No thanks. -Dave

What is this whole rebate thing? I live in the UK, I'm guessing its a US
thing right?

Steve

It's a marketing scam. Many consumer items in the U.S. (especially
electronics and computer components) are advertised as costing $____
"after
rebate". Let's say a DVD player is $30 US after rebate. So you pay sixty
bucks for it, and then you have to mail in for the rebate. To send away
for
the rebate, you need an ORIGINAL sales receipt, and an ORIGINAL UPC CODE
(cut off the box). Plus, you need to fill in a form of course. You have
to
send all this information away by mail. It's a scam, as most rebates are
rejected, even if they are claimed correctly. The most common scam is
that
you did everything right, but the rebate processing company will claim
(incorrectly) that you didn't send in the UPC code. Thus the rebate is
rejected.

What it boils down to is that it is a way to trick U.S. consumers into
paying more for certain items by promising to give them a discount AFTER
THEY BUY something, and then deliberately failing to honor that promise.

You'll see lots of people claim that they have no problem claiming
rebates.
These are the same people who SHOULD be purchasing lottery tickets on a
regular basis. When more than 50% of rebates are automatically rejected,
someone who's never had a problem claiming a rebate obviously has luck on
their side. -Dave

Very true, nothing but a scam!

Dashi

Hey Ed:

What is the incentive for companies to offer mail in rebates?

Could it be that you are offering them an interest free loan for the period
between when you pay up front and the rebate arrives in your mailbox?

Just another consumer ripoff.

Dashi

"Ed Medlin" wrote in message
...

"Anon" wrote in message
s.com...

I recently bought a WD 120 GB drive with 8MB cache with a $60 rebate
and
the
rebate was in my mail in a couple of weeks!


Quick, buy a powerball ticket before your luck runs out. -Dave



I dunno...... I recently purchased a big-screen HDTV, Dolby receiver,
subwoofer, new Hitachi LCD monitor and a video card. All with mail-in
rebates. Got checks totaling over $400 US in the mail the last two weeks.
If
they were that bad, someone would be on their collective asses for
offering
these. Large, well established companies are NOT going to use false
advertising to sell their products. Granted, there are probably a very few
unscrupulous companies out there, but they are in the minority.

Ed


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.567 / Virus Database: 358 - Release Date: 1/24/2004

"Sally" wrote in message
...
Ruel Smith (Big Daddy) wrote:
on Mon January 26 2004 2:18 pm, Sally decided to enlighten us with:


That was my point. I have been a SuSE user, but I've considered going to
Red Hat/Fedora because of the whole debacle. However, Fedora Core 1 is
in
its infancy, and I do like SuSE a lot.

What French/German/Russian deal thing?


Did you miss that whole Iraq/UN/France-Germany-Russia thing that happened
last year? You must live in a cave...

No, of course not but I don't see why it would affect your choice of
distro. I'm British and our forces were/are there as well you know. It
wouldnt make one bit of difference to the distro I choose, the make of car
I drive etc...

Sally I bet that you are a good looking babe, do you like Americans?

Dashi

Yeah right! I had the pleasure of installing the Linux Nvidia drivers to
Mandrake 9.2 tonight.

What a pain in the ass, I decided to remove Linux altogether from my
system,
guess what, it's like a virus, harder than hell to remove.

It has you jumping thru hoops for what should be an easy task.

Linux sux big time.

Dashi

It was easy and completely automatic on SUSE 9.0. Some other things on Suse
are a bit tougher than Mandrake, I guess there are pros and cons for any
distro. Right now I am stuck in KDE and want to use Gnome......lol.........
I can't get out of KDE for the life of me....... Regards Dashi.......


Ed


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.571 / Virus Database: 361 - Release Date: 1/26/2004

"Dashi" wrote in message
news:wAKRb.42459$U%5.233424@attbi_s03...
Hey Ed:

What is the incentive for companies to offer mail in rebates?

Could it be that you are offering them an interest free loan for the
period
between when you pay up front and the rebate arrives in your mailbox?

Just another consumer ripoff.

Dashi

I guess it is the fact that over half the people don't mail in the rebate
form. Yep, if you get right down to it, it probably could be considered that
way. People buy the product, lose or just don't bother with the rebate.


Ed


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.571 / Virus Database: 361 - Release Date: 1/26/2004