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linux doing well |
Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Arthur Kalliokoski said: Win 7 still has auto-run, doesn't it? You've disabled it, haven't you? He's not talking about a disk auto-running anything, but the OS noticing that a USB device was connected, looking up its USB Device IDs, and searching for a driver. Apparently that's not working. -- |
Karadoc ~~
Member #2,749
September 2002
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SiegeLord said: Just plugged a USB printer into my laptop with Windows 7, and it didn't provide any sort of feedback... what's worse is that the printer's website says that Windows 7 auto-detection is the only way to get drivers for this printer, there is no downloadable driver for it! I'll have to try some workabouts sometime later, but meh... when I plugged that printer into the same laptop running Linux, everything worked automatically .Also, when I installed Win7 onto that laptop I had to spend at least an hour getting random drivers for stuff like USB3, built in audio, wifi, etc etc. My Linux installation on the same laptop probably took 3x time less. Thanks for the info! Obviously Windows is nothing but a endless stream of hassles in terms of setting things up, whereas this miscellaneous Linux distro is trivially easy to use. ... The truth is I don't really know why you're telling me that stuff. If you want to complain about your printer not working on Windows, maybe you should tell Microsoft, or the producer of the printer. I myself have never had any problems with hardware detection in Windows. Phones, usb drives, portable HHDs, cameras, printers, portable music players, - have all worked for me... so I think it's fair to say that Windows does support automatic hardware detection. But I'm not surprised that people are able to find examples of particular computers in which that autodection is disabled or broken in some way, or particular pieces of hardware that are not recognised. I'd expect the same to be true for Linux. It's a bit weird that Windows 'didn't provide any sort of feedback' when you plugged in your printer. In previous versions of Windows I've seen it identify things as "unknown USB device" or something like that, but never ignore the device completely. Perhaps you didn't have the printer turned on.(?) Besides; I'm not even the one who pointed out that Windows does that autodection anyway. All I said was that BAF said it. ----------- |
SiegeLord
Member #7,827
October 2006
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Karadoc ~~ said: Thanks for the info! Obviously Windows is nothing but a endless stream of hassles in terms of setting things up, whereas this miscellaneous Linux distro is trivially easy to use. I know you're being sarcastic, but frankly that's the way I would characterize it and it has been so for me for the last couple of years. I don't mind reinstalling Linux from scratch every couple of months because it's at most an investment of a few hours... everything works automatically. I dread whenever I have to reinstall Windows... the driver issue is just unacceptable. I'm not even talking about issues with MinGW and git or anything that I bring about onto myself... just getting all the hardware associated with the computer (laptop usually) recognized and working fully takes forever. Heck, on that laptop the USB3 ports gave me errors on Windows from time to time too even after I installed drivers for them... the issue seemed to go away, but it just left a very poor taste in my mouth. Quote: Besides; I'm not even the one who pointed out that Windows does that autodection anyway. The manufacturer of the printer did, in my case. EDIT: To make this clear, I manually download drivers for my laptop. HP provides a nice list of all the drivers in a single place, so there's relatively little hunting going on. Maybe the supposed automatic driver detection thing would work better? Each manual driver install asked me to restart (I said no). Would the automatic one force a restart? Manual driver downloading issue kills a day, but then you forget about it if all went well. Windows update is a gift that keeps giving... nothing like booting Windows to do some work, except then having to wait minutes for the updates to configure themselves. Windows update is by far the worst feature of Windows (since it's so intrusive). "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow."-Ecclesiastes 1:18 |
kazzmir
Member #1,786
December 2001
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Technology sucks. |
weapon_S
Member #7,859
October 2006
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Specter, I'd still recommend Debian. I'd go for Debian "experimental" then. (If I got the name correctly.)
I'd prefer often fixes. |
Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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weapon_S said: Ubuntu is based on Debian "unstable" IIRC, and that distro has the disadvantage that some bugs remain unfixed for long periods (which is one of the main disadvantages of Ubuntu). Bugs don't linger in debian unstable too long. But they do in ubuntu because ubuntu decides to split off of debian unstable at weird times where debian unstable could be a bit more unstable than usual, which leaves ubuntu as a complete mess for 6 months. I think you have the debian names wrong though:
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furinkan
Member #10,271
October 2008
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I by no means advocate universal adoption of Linux as a desktop. It works with little enough hassle that the public is appeased, and good for them. They can go download shareware, turn off automatic updates, and use IE 6 for all I care (I don't do client side very much, so its not my concern). I like Linux because depending on how much you are willing to learn, you can conceivably change the entire system. I happen to hate KDE, so I use GNOME. I hate the GNOME bars, so I use AVN. I hate skipping when I'm recording a bunch of tracks, so I compile a "real time" Kernel. Now, some may say that there are Explorer replacements, et al, and so that doesn't make a case for Linux. I beg to differ. Any explorer replacements or enhancements are hacks to get around the default behavior. Whereas on Linux, everything is designed with a KISS mindset. GNOME is no more "Linuxy" than KDE; Its just my shell of choice. |
Arthur Kalliokoski
Second in Command
February 2005
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Well, isn't win 8 designed the way it is for beginners? Think "Microsoft Bob" all over again, but now it's the default, not the add-on. And in a couple of months, the poor saps won't be beginners anymore, and will pirate win 7 to death. [EDIT] They all watch too much MSNBC... they get ideas. |
Karadoc ~~
Member #2,749
September 2002
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Arthur Kalliokoski said: Well, isn't win 8 designed the way it is for beginners? What makes you say that? I've hardly looked at Windows 8 myself, but some of the stuff I've read suggests that although they've tried to make things as intuitive as possible; they actually assume a slightly higher level of computer adeptness than W7 in that many things are no longer explicitly shown. This article is a bit out-of-date now, but I like how it gives a few examples of how each new version of Windows assumes a greater level of knowledge from its users. .. So.. anyway, what have you got in mind when you say that W8 is designed for beginners? ----------- |
Arthur Kalliokoski
Second in Command
February 2005
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This sarcastic page of what not to do seems to describe windows 8 pretty well. They all watch too much MSNBC... they get ideas. |
bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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Karadoc ~~ said: What makes you say that? I've hardly looked at Windows 8 myself, but some of the stuff I've read suggests that although they've tried to make things as intuitive as possible; they actually assume a slightly higher level of computer adeptness than W7 in that many things are no longer explicitly shown. The idea is that most users aren't going to do those things so they've hidden them to avoid confusing them. Unfortunately, that means it takes something like 4 obscure clicks to shutdown Windows 8. Karadoc ~~ said: This article is a bit out-of-date now, but I like how it gives a few examples of how each new version of Windows assumes a greater level of knowledge from its users. I didn't bother to read through the whole thing, but I read most of the first page. I think the author is wrong. He says that Windows 8 has more implicit interactions that need to be learned, whereas Windows 7 gave more feedback. I don't think that's the case. I think we're all just so used to the implicit meaning of double-click, drag and drop, click and drag, etc., that we know what they mean. That knowledge is mostly learned through practice and observing others. The touch interfaces are much simpler to do, even though they may end up being more work (especially on non-touch devices). Such is a GUI though. -- acc.js | al4anim - Allegro 4 Animation library | Allegro 5 VS/NuGet Guide | Allegro.cc Mockup | Allegro.cc <code> Tag | Allegro 4 Timer Example (w/ Semaphores) | Allegro 5 "Winpkg" (MSVC readme) | Bambot | Blog | C++ STL Container Flowchart | Castopulence Software | Check Return Values | Derail? | Is This A Discussion? Flow Chart | Filesystem Hierarchy Standard | Clean Code Talks - Global State and Singletons | How To Use Header Files | GNU/Linux (Debian, Fedora, Gentoo) | rot (rot13, rot47, rotN) | Streaming |
MiquelFire
Member #3,110
January 2003
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If you don't have a touch screen, Windows 8 is not nice to use. This coming from someone who uses GUI all the time too. --- |
Arthur Kalliokoski
Second in Command
February 2005
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I thought the touch screen came about because the little phones were too small to have a decent keyboard, let alone a mouse? They all watch too much MSNBC... they get ideas. |
MiquelFire
Member #3,110
January 2003
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Microsoft didn't think of that it seems. The start screen is confusing to use with a mouse as well. Don't think that touch actions are emulated with a mouse. They're not. --- |
Tobias Dammers
Member #2,604
August 2002
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Arthur Kalliokoski said: I thought the touch screen came about because the little phones were too small to have a decent keyboard, let alone a mouse? Correct. And now that everyone has gotten used to touch screens, Microsoft figured that people are suddenly too stupid for keyboards and mice, and also stupid enough to dish out for an OS and the required hardware to support it, and that they won't figure out how a touch screen is actually an inferior input device because it has no tactile feedback and operating the input device inevitably obscures the visuals. The sad part is that they might even be right about this one. People will buy this crap, and then Microsoft will pull the plug on the older Windowses, and in a few years, people will have forgotten about mice completely and just assume touch screens are the only way one can possibly operate a computer in a meaningful way. I'm just waiting for the medical studies to roll in, where they show the devastating results of using touch screens for 40 hours per week straight... SiegeLord said: I don't mind reinstalling Linux from scratch every couple of months because it's at most an investment of a few hours... Yeah, but the fun part is, there is absolutely no reason to. The last time I reinstalled was because I wanted full-disk crypto, and reinstalling was easier than manually configuring an LVM setup and then copying my system partition back into place. Other than that, I have seamlessly migrated through three debian releases on three different hardware platforms without so much as a hickup, and all those computers perform just as well as they did on day one. Unless you're talking about Linux From Scratch (LFS); with that, I can see how a regular reinstall can be the easier solution. --- |
SiegeLord
Member #7,827
October 2006
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Tobias Dammers said: Yeah, but the fun part is, there is absolutely no reason to. The last time I reinstalled was because I wanted full-disk crypto, and reinstalling was easier than manually configuring an LVM setup and then copying my system partition back into place. Other than that, I have seamlessly migrated through three debian releases on three different hardware platforms without so much as a hickup, and all those computers perform just as well as they did on day one. Unless you're talking about Linux From Scratch (LFS); with that, I can see how a regular reinstall can be the easier solution. I find that upgrading distributions (I use Kubuntu) tends to take just as long as reinstalling it from scratch. Maybe I'll try upgrading it to see how it goes, I suppose, but I don't necessarily see the point of doing that. "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow."-Ecclesiastes 1:18 |
Trent Gamblin
Member #261
April 2000
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I've been using Windows 8 for a week or two now, and from my point of view, the "made for touchscreen" idea is overplayed. My workflow is exactly the same as on Windows 7 pretty much. The only thing that's "touchscreeny" is the Metro kick-off page, which I see exactly once when I first start the computer. I still have my desktop just the same as before. Also, the "can't run untrusted software" is overplayed too. I've seen that maybe 2-3 times and I've installed and run dozens of third party apps, even ones without installers run without warning (the 2-3 times I saw it were in the first couple days of running the system so maybe I clicked an option somewhere, I don't remember though.)
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weapon_S
Member #7,859
October 2006
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Oh, God Windows 8 seems to be everything I DON'T want. How the F are they planning on selling that?! Knowing that it's Microsoft gives me the irrational fear that someone would actually want it for some reason. And that is some scary $#!T. |
Karadoc ~~
Member #2,749
September 2002
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weapon_s, what in particular are you referring to? ----------- |
Tobias Dammers
Member #2,604
August 2002
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SiegeLord said: I find that upgrading distributions (I use Kubuntu) tends to take just as long as reinstalling it from scratch. Maybe I'll try upgrading it to see how it goes, I suppose, but I don't necessarily see the point of doing that. If you know what you're doing, you can even do it in a phased way, at least with debian proper - start out with the old distro, then add the new one to the repos, but use pinning to prefer the old one; then install packages from the new distro as needed; at some point, most of your system will have migrated, at which point you can decide to undo (or swap) the pinning and do a full-upgrade. I actually have a squeeze/wheezy hybrid install in a VM somewhere, and it works fine - squeeze base system, haskell toolchain from wheezy (interestingly, this also pulled in libc from wheezy, but everything still works flawlessly). I wouldn't recommend it with Ubuntu though. --- |
weapon_S
Member #7,859
October 2006
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This wasn't linked directly apparently. |
SiegeLord
Member #7,827
October 2006
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Tobias Dammers said: If you know what you're doing, you can even do it in a phased way, at least with debian proper - start out with the old distro, then add the new one to the repos, but use pinning to prefer the old one; then install packages from the new distro as needed; at some point, most of your system will have migrated, at which point you can decide to undo (or swap) the pinning and do a full-upgrade. Why not do a full upgrade to begin with if I'm going to have to do it eventually anyway? I don't see what you gain with this hodge-podge rolling release idea aside from abandoning the guarantee (however small it is with Ubuntu) of stability. Hardly seeing any time savings either, which is the primary concern anyway. "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow."-Ecclesiastes 1:18 |
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