What is Digg?3 Comments
- 0L1VER, on 06/02/2008, -0/+3"1. Applications: Despite what your friends may have told you on IM or chat, compatibility with popular software applications is not great. ... And don’t get me started on Gimp. It’s a nice free toy for photo manipulation and editing graphics - but it’s about as comparable to Photoshop as is Microsoft Paint."
As he says, Photoshop works well in Wine, and if you're the average computer user, the kind that this article is aimed at, then Gimp (or even Gimpshop if you like Photoshop's interface) will have all of the features you need plus a whole lot more. Describing is as comparable to Paint is simply wrong - it has almost all, (but not all) of Photoshop's features, and if you asked the average user to find a feature that Photoshop had that Gimp doesn't, they wouldn't find a single one.
"Now it is possible to sidestep some of these issues using a Virtual Machine. But since it is claimed Ubuntu is Linux for human beings, not just uber-computing-geeks, virtualization is not a practical option."
Then use the free, open-source comparable Linux alternatives.
2. The Command Line: Hard-core Linux users love the power of the command line. Tapping out commands such as “./configure –with-options and make and make install” are the essential ingredients to surviving in Linux land. Unfortunately, Mum and Dad have enough trouble just double clicking the installation icon. They are not going to love you very much when you start asking them to open up a command line terminal and tap out complicated lines of code to install that essential software driver or application. You won’t like it much either, once you’ve spent several hours at the command line trying to solve some mysterious dependency problems nobody else has apparently encountered before. And because there’s still no standard package management system supported across Linux platforms, chances are you will run into software that is not supplied in .deb (Debian) format (think of .deb as the Ubuntu equivalent to .exe installations in Windows). Without a Debian file, you’ll need to compile that wonderful software application from source using command line structures.
Fair point - a standard packaging system would be great, but (other than games), it's rare to not have required software in .deb format, especially with Ubuntu's current popularity. And if you've switched to Ubuntu, not being able to a wide selection of games is a sacrifice you must be willing to make. Besides, most games can be made to work with Wine. They're challenging to set up for a new user, but it's simply copying instructions, and once it's set up, it'll be just a click away in your menu.
3. Hardware Support.
This argument is flawed. Most (close to all) hardware can be made to work. It's just sometimes you have to tick a box in the "Restricted Drivers" panel.
4. DRM or lackof
The only DRM files I use are iPlayer ones, which can be streamed from the BBC website.
5. Ubuntu just works:
I've been lucky with my hardware, but it's true that not everything will work first time. That's what's great about the huge forum community - you can search for hardware, and you'll get a set of instructions showing how to get it working.
"Ubuntu is an operating system for computer fanatics with a lot of spare time on their hands to troubleshoot, Google error messages, and post desperate pleas for help on the official Ubuntu support forums."
I'd say Ubuntu is an operating system for intermediate computer users, or complete novices. If you understand how to copy and paste instructions, and to search ubuntuforums.org for a solution, you'll be fine. If you're a complete novice, and don't install anything yourself, then you would be fine with Ubuntu. It's the inexperienced computer users who will prefer the familiar interface of Windows, but I think that the majority of people will be fine with Ubuntu once they've got a basic setup. - advix, on 06/02/2008, -1/+3Buried for sharing FUD. What a stupid face (on that icon) ....
- advix, on 06/02/2008, -0/+1BTW: "Vista sucks" return far more links he wrote about Linux.
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