Well, Windows is back on the disk.

Tue Jan 17 07:43:16 UTC 2006

Am Dienstag, den 17.01.2006, 11:32 +1100 schrieb Sasha Tsykin:
> 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? 
many, many times.

> 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, the thing is:
i haven't said that linux is better then win :)

i use linux for long enough to know what works and whats not. my comment
that this friend is happier on his PARTICULAR machine with warty or
hoary than with win98, is as pointless as the mail from the OP. 

i'm bored and tired of reading emails from people who tested ubuntu on
*one* machine, had problems and then write mails like 'linux is not
ready for the desktop'. this is just a personal experience which doesn't
give any of us an insight on how ready linux is for widespread use. my
example should only show that simple users can experience the exact
opposide. it's some sort of random behaviour. 

i'm no fanboy (too bored for fan, too old for boy too). i just think
that there is some confusing here and there.
you say you converted to linux a year ago, so i assume you used windows
much longer than linux, so you could be considered advanced.
but take a user without any experience. he or she will be lost,
regardless of win or mac or linux. 
and thats what i think the original poster also confuses. he writes that
if he needs a codec to play a specific file, he uses google, downloads
the files, and there you go. *this* i consider advanced. most people who
use computers are *not* capable of doing such things! so why would (in
the long run) windows be more userfriendly? i consider myself advanced
in some ways, the first time i used OSX, i *hated* it! i was thinking
'what the...?'. got confused by a bunch of things, still osx is
considered the most userfriendly os. should i now mail steve jobs that
he's a lamer? today i downloaded dapper flight 3, installed it, was
happy to try it out and especially play with beagle. but beagle is
uninstallable at the moment. so i dowloaded sources, installed a
b*ttload of deps and then compiling beagle bombed out. that is what i
call frustrating. so you see, i know what works and what's not.

oh, and a funny thing happend a few days ago:
a user said his monitor/computer is broken, he doesnt know what, the
monitor stays dark, but the fans in the computer are running. then he
said everythings allright again, computer/monitor are working. then
again, computer/monitor broken. then this user bought 3(!) monitors
(used ones) and with all, he said, it's the same problem. they all work
for a while and then die/break. then support came, sat down, moved the
mouse... you know, windows shuts down the monitor after 20 minutes
idletime... this is actually a true story, by the way.

so please don't tell me that a user like this, would find a thing in
windows or osx or any other os that exists on planet earth. you may
claim that he's an idiot, which could be true, but he's also simply a
user. not everyone is like this one, but for a lot of computer users, we
here at ubuntu-users are super advanced wizzards cause we were able to
sign up to a maillinglist. and this is not even a joke. 

to make a long story short:
win is not more userfriendly then lin in the long run. it sure has some
nice features that linux lacks, it has without a doubt much more
applications in its universe, but if some things break, most people are
helpless in all systems. and no shiny gui can solve this by now. 
not win, not lin, not osx. *i* think.

and not really topic and not really offtopic
http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2006-January/003706.html

ulrich
-- 
ulrich steffens
ulrich at barfuss-jerusalem.org
http://www.barfuss-jerusalem.org