Well, Windows is back on the disk.

[Sasha Tsykin]

Lonn wrote:

>| -----Original Message-----
>| From: Sasha Tsykin [mailto:stsykin at gmail.com]
>| Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 19:33
>| To: Ubuntu Help and User Discussions
>| Subject: Re: Well, Windows is back on the disk.
>|
>|
>| ulrich steffens wrote:
>|
>| >Am Montag, den 16.01.2006, 19:44 +0800 schrieb Michael Richter:
>| >
>| >
>| >>>>- Ubuntu, however, got confused by my system having two sound cards in
>| >>>>it.  It would randomly switch between them when doing sound-based
>| >>>>things.  Or some programs would ONLY go to the undesired sound card
>| >>>>(because it was card 0) or simply fail to produce sound at all.  If I
>| >>>>removed one sound card, however, and sadly the desired card, all such
>| >>>>confusion vanished.
>| >>>>
>| >>>>
>| >>>Someone gave the solution very recently for fixing the confusion among
>| >>>two cards.
>| >>>
>| >>>
>| >>That would be my reference to Mystic Incantations and half-solved
>| >>problems.  Implementing that solution now means that some programs
>| >>don't make sound at all.  So there's no more confusing switches.
>| >>There's just some programs not working with sound at all.  It's a step
>| >>up -- at least when I do get sound it's OK quality -- but it's not
>| >>solved.
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>>>- Nastiest of all: GNOME just locked up tight when it tried to play
>| >>>>the startup sound and couldn't.
>| >>>>
>| >>>>
>| >>>You can use planty GUI's different from Gnome.
>| >>>
>| >>>
>| >>I can.  But that puts me even further and further away from Ubuntu,
>| >>now, doesn't it?  And it adds more confusion to the end-user
>| >>experience to just suddenly change the environment.  Wouldn't it be
>| >>better to just not have the sound system kill the GUI?
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>>Now, let's see what is in this link. Too bad, is in french, but maybe
>| >>>you do read french, or friends of yours do ?
>| >>>http://www.hns-info.net/article.php3?id_article=4201
>| >>>
>| >>>
>| >>I'm English native, German near-native, French semi-competent and
>| >>Chinese embarrassing.  ;-)
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>>To say what's interesting to notice, when you buy a computer, almost
>| >>>always Windows is in it. Then when you need more applications you pay
>| >>>lots of money for them. When you need help the hotline costs bags of
>| >>>money and they are not in a hurry to answer. Here in France a comic
>| >>>woman did a sketch 'allllooooo the hotliiiiine ???' -'Yes, stay tuned,
>| >>>we'll answer within the three next days!'
>| >>>
>| >>>
>| >>Oh, Hell yes!  I've never had a satisfying call into a help line for
>| >>software (or hardware, for that matter).  Even some that my employer
>| >>paid millions for.  (Literally.)  The thing is, though, that I've
>| >>rarely had problems this profound under Windows for basic
>| >>functionality.  Indeed only once did I have such problems and the
>| >>problems turned out to be a motherboard slowly flaking out.
>| >>
>| >>With Ubuntu it has been mostly an OK-to-good experience.  Except for
>| >>sound.  (And I've heard nasty things about printing, but my printer is
>| >>currently toast so thankfully I'm not experiencing that particular
>| >>nightmare.)  Sound is, quite literally, a show-stopper now.  The times
>| >>that I actually want sound are for relaxation and entertainment.  I
>| >>just don't appear to be wired correctly to find entertainment and
>| >>relaxation through Mystic Incantations.  Perhaps I need to adopt the
>| >>Sufi attitude of basically laughing at the absurdity of the world to
>| >>catch on.
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>>Can you share your windows and your applications with your friends ? no
>| >>>you can't, if you want to copy the OS to several machines of yours and
>| >>>don't have the right license, you can't, if you want to get rid or the
>| >>>firewell they installed to put an opensource firewall, you
>| can't get rid
>| >>>of it unless you use a big iron bar to kick it out, do you know why ?
>| >>>because the software you paid for does not belong to you, but to the
>| >>>softwares company. And worse of all, after a few times re-installing,
>| >>>the keycode does not work anymore. 'allloooo the hotline ????'  :((
>| >>>
>| >>>
>| >>And yet, using Windows XP the past (about) three years on this laptop,
>| >>I've never had problems with any of that.  My firewall is external
>| >>(because I don't trust self-hosted firewalling at all, MS or no).  I
>| >>don't share my Windows disks.  And I've never needed to do anything
>| >>with keycodes.
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>>(How much did you offer for the development of Ubuntu btw ?)
>| >>>
>| >>>
>| >>Well, once I get my bearings -- if ever I do -- I will likely start
>| >>writing software for it.  Now?  None, of course.  This is the part of
>| >>the cycle called "evaluation".
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>>If a company that develops a non free software crashes, and the format
>| >>>of your documents is not known by open applications, your work is lost.
>| >>>
>| >>>
>| >>And yet I can count the number of lost documents I've had since about
>| >>1985 on one hand.
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>>And also, during the time I'm learning to look forward and see the
>| >>>moment I'll learn to compile a kernel, you'll know all the types of
>| >>>firewalls and anti-virii/anti-all_malwares, while I'm running 3
>| >>>different distributions to learn how to make them function, as
>| well as a
>| >>>bunch of applications... now my harware does not fail anymore,
>| it's more
>| >>>cool...
>| >>>
>| >>>
>| >>My hardware has failed more often in the past three weeks than it has
>| >>in the three years previous.  Don't be trying to talk about hardware
>| >>not failing to me here....
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>> Solution: install with  a dual boot, and
>| >>>forget the hard life ?
>| >>>
>| >>>
>| >>That is, in fact, the solution I adopted.  I just don't like the fact
>| >>I had to.  Sound is a very basic piece of functionality that has been
>| >>SOLVED in Windows, BeOS, MacOS (various versions, no less!) and a
>| >>whole host of other systems for a long time.  Only here in Linux-land
>| >>does it appear to be a nightmare of Mystic Incantations.
>| >>
>| >>
>| >>
>| >i still don't get the point in trying ubuntu (linux), which has it's
>| >struggles in hardware support, finding out it doesn't suit your needs
>| >and then telling us that linux is not ready at all, because YOU had a
>| >bad experience. did i miss something?
>| >i mean you only had a bad experience with ONE system, pretty lame then
>| >to coming up with such prediction.
>| >
>| >and a counterexperience:
>| >a friend of mine nagged me for weeks that he couldnt get sound working
>| >on hin win98-machine. i ended up saying 'win sucks, try ubuntu'. he
>| >installed 5.04, sound works.
>| >
>| >so is win98, not ready for the desktop? and should he write a mail taht
>| >says 'well, ubuntu is back on the disk'?
>| >
>| >ulrich
>| >
>| >
>| How many times have you heard of windows not working? I agree that
>| Ubuntu is not a finished product yet. While I have been distributing it
>| to all the various computer-illiterate members of my family, that is
>| only for e-mail and internet. I wouldn't want them to be using it for
>| anything more complicated because they don't know how to fix it if
>| something goes wrond and I can't be bothered to do it fr them. I think
>| it's time that people face reality about windows and linux. I happen to
>| prefer linux for a variety of reasons, including stability, reliability
>| (which are not the same thing) and it's free. Also, until recently I had
>| much better performance because Windows 64-bit had not come out yet, and
>| even now it is hard to find, and not very good by all reports. That does
>| not mean it is better in every respect. In the area of ease-of-use and
>| ease-of-setup, Ubuntu, and every other linux, is miles behing Windows.
>| You can take that fact from somebody ho migrated a year ago and is only
>| now starting to feel confident in his abilities to get things done.
>| Please don't get emotional about this, because windows xp does do some
>| thing better, fact.
>|
>| As for windows 98, while it was good when it came out, how can you
>| compare it to a modern distribution? There is no basis for comparison.
>| Compare apples with apples. That means compare modern linuxes to windows
>| xp, because, hears some news for you, very few people actually stil use
>| 98. And they shouldn't be, because it does suck. Windows 98 is most
>| definitely not ready for a modern desktop because it has not been
>| developed for 8 years. How can you expect anythign even remotely
>| resembling modern hardware to work on it?
>|
>| Sasha
>|
>| --
>
>Sasha,
>
>WIN98 -- WIN98SE -- WIN-ME -- WIN 2000 are constantly updated and supported
>by MicroSoft. Practically all software that ran on WIN95 will run on the
>latest and greatest. Compatibility issues have been addressed very nicely.
>Everything from USB to FireWire and most desired connectivity is available
>on those old OSs. MS does some things -- very *right*.
>
>Contrasting WINDOWS and Linux is a difficult assignment. They are very
>different. In the initial 'user' stages WINDOWS is easiest and most
>functional. In the later stages of learning and experience, Linux is still
>difficult, but offers more freedom because users are forced to learn much of
>its structure and functionality -- which they can then turn to better
>advantage than is possible with MS products.
>
>Lonn
>
>Lonn
>
>
>  
>
I agree with you Lonn, if I though windows was better than linux, then I 
would be using it, because I do have a legal copy which is going unused 
at the moment. What I was saying is that Windows does not stuff up in 
the way linux sometimes does. To use a cliche, it "Just Works." That is 
very impressive and should be acknowledged. Also, if that is all people 
wqant and need from heir computer, ultimately, windows is a better 
choice than linux.

Also, no windows except for xp is supported with frequent updates, or 
sometimes, any updates, so I'm not sure where you are getting your 
information from.

Finally, contrasting windows with linux in terms of usability, or room 
to grow, etc. is in fact very easy. It is only difficult to contrast the 
code. The end user experience can be and is contrasted all the time.

Sasha