tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post8975717982692413750..comments2024-01-27T16:58:23.292-08:00Comments on Daniel Keys Moran: The Penguin WinsDaniel Keys Moranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-45103469225652001772010-02-14T13:18:59.874-08:002010-02-14T13:18:59.874-08:00Dan,
Just stumbled across this post. A little lat...Dan,<br /><br />Just stumbled across this post. A little late, maybe you've already either answered these questions or given up, but in case you haven't:<br /><br />VLC does indeed rock and is an excellent counter-example, when I occasionally get fed up with the linux world lagging in some aspect of multimedia support. It doesn't have to be this way, and VLC is the proof.<br /><br />Re: itunes, I've never really used it, so I can't speak directly to it, but a lot of people seem to find amarok a viable itunes replacement. Amarok seems to generate the same kind of user-loyalty as itunes. I switched to amarok a while back because it supported my nano better than rhythmbox, but I hear rhythmbox has caught up in that department.<br /><br />Linux is heavily supported in the 3D world, but more heavily in the professional 3D world, post production shops, etc. According to friends in the field, there seems to be a strong trend towards linux-based workstations and certainly render farms (the farms may be driving the adoption of linux on workstations) to the point hwere it may soon dominate the industry.<br /><br />Unfortunately Red Hat is the linux of choice in that industry, probably because of commercial driver support. Given how hardware/driver intense the field is, the odds of running into an insoluble problem if you run on any other distro - and being told to take a hike if you call the app vendor - you can see why Red Hat continues to dominate there.<br /><br />The deb/rpm split is stupid, yes, especially since .deb has pretty much won (automatic dependency management is the best thing since sliced bread). It goes way, way back. The .deb system and repositories has been one of Debian's greatest strengths from the early days of linux. <br />Fortunately, there's lots of good .deb support for Red Hat these days (yum, etc) but it seems to be lagging a bit on the organizational end.<br /><br />I hear great things about Powershell, but comparing Powershell to Bash is comparing oranges and apple cores. Powershell has a lot of great stuff in it - that it needs because it's not on a linux machine and can't count on the linux ecosystem. It's not "powershell versus bash", it's "powershell versus bash, perl, python, the entire suite of standard linux command line tools and the linux pipe/redirect approach."<br /><br />Does XXCOPY support partial file updating? If not, you may be pleasantly surprised the second time you rsync a file hierarchy. Rsync is primarily intended to support partial updating across network connections, though I also find it useful for local file synchronization.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01579830553478911331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-57328280691882676122009-10-21T00:44:11.924-07:002009-10-21T00:44:11.924-07:00I have to agree with all your major points, Dan. I...I have to agree with all your major points, Dan. I *began* using Ubuntu in order to keep various elderly machines working usefully (don't EVEN get me started about the trials of using WinME on a P3 system), but soon I realized that the majority of what I did every day could be done on a machine with Ubuntu, and done at far less cost.<br /><br />This posting is an example - the machine I'm using right now to write this is a Dell Mini 9, the OS is Ubuntu 8.04, and the browser is Firefox 3.5.<br /><br />There are a few programs that I wish were available on Ubuntu, but for the most part (90%, just as you said), Ubuntu does the job as well, and often better.<br /><br />Ed Becerraeabecerrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05976602606282014005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-65509714314188598572009-09-14T16:49:30.248-07:002009-09-14T16:49:30.248-07:00Been using Linux since it was almost useless, jus...Been using Linux since it was almost useless, just a programmers toy and a webmasters dream come true. It's gaining ground in EVERY area fast. In many areas it's more advanced than windows. <br /><br />I'll take gimp over Photoshop ANY day. The Gimp Interface is VERY different but more flexible. It's missing some clip-art like tools. It has gone from ok to the best raster editor I've ever used. What I think it's missing is a CLI for scripting support. We used it to clean up 800 photo's that "professional" artists did for us last year.<br /><br />The only thing I still use M$ for is gaming.You'll see competitive gaming in 5 years. There are a few free games out there and LOTS of high-end free engines and engine frameworks in the works.<br /><br />The most popular Wine projects are games and Quickbooks. That is because the thing Linux users are missing in the computing time are games. Also there isn't ANYTHING that even comes close to comparing to Quickbooks that's not enterprise.<br /><br /> We use Quickbooks and I hate it, but On top of that I'd have to sell the bookkeepers and accountants to switch. Linux has a LONG way to go there.<br /><br />Enjoy not having to deal with the M$ Office bugs. Haven't missed it since I switched to OOo 1.0. No math errors, no strangeness in cutting and pasting, no creating cell relationships one at a time from sheet to sheet. Also the file sizes in native OOo are smaller. Anyone who has a computer (PC, Mac, Sun) can download the same program and share files. It sure beats ... ohh you can't open that file. Sure no problem just spend $200 and your good to go.<br /><br />I won't get into .net or powershell because I have no experience with them. I'd be suprised if M$ did anything except pretend to add functionality (that is what happened with IE8)<br /><br />I'm no 3d expert, but I've read several similar complaints about Blender, your right on the money there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-13816802377552373112009-08-24T13:50:56.253-07:002009-08-24T13:50:56.253-07:00"You're just making all these words up, r..."You're just making all these words up, right?"<br /><br />Flogwitz.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-41787646240996962932009-08-24T13:50:05.284-07:002009-08-24T13:50:05.284-07:00"The deb/rpm/whatever split is stupidly count..."The deb/rpm/whatever split is stupidly counterproductive."<br /><br />Yes, but unfortunately it's not just a matter of picking one and moving on. The problem is that Debian-based and RedHat-based distributions put their files in different places, so you can't use one package for both.<br /><br />There has been work to <a href="http://www.linuxbase.org" rel="nofollow">unify</a> the two, but it's, er, less than complete.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-5441434961603118732009-07-30T17:47:44.963-07:002009-07-30T17:47:44.963-07:00I made the switch to Ubuntu about three months ago...I made the switch to Ubuntu about three months ago, I think. I do keep a copy of Windows 7 as an alternate boot, but this morning was the first time I brought it up in two months. That was so I could play a powerpoint presentation (I hate Wine and my VirtualBox Windows 7 setup has awful audio).<br /><br />I do run the virtualbox fairly often. For one thing, I need to check my sites with Internet Explorer since it behaves differently from real browsers. For another, I really like Microsoft Publisher for some projects. Also, I'm quite fond of FastStone Image Viewer in conjunction with Irfanview for quick-and-dirty image manipulation for my web designs. But all those things work just fine inside the VirtualBox.<br /><br />BTW try out ch as a command interpreter for both Windows and Linux. It's very cool. Direct calculation of things entered at the command line, simple programs without bothering to save them in a file, etc. Designed for multiple platform use from the getgo.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12668307286476446511noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-73644103478847468772009-07-27T12:09:27.668-07:002009-07-27T12:09:27.668-07:00I've been using Ubuntu on my main machine and ...I've been using Ubuntu on my main machine and file server for a couple years now. My own development work is mainly in PLT Scheme (a Lisp dialect), which runs on Linux (UNIX in general), Windows, and Mac OS. So, I don't have any problem there. I do have Windows XP running under KVM on that machine for when I absolutely have to have Windows.<br /><br />My work laptop is running Windows XP - I 'upgraded' it from Windows Vista after a myriad of problems there. I have Ubuntu 9.04 running under VMWare Player so I also have Linux available when I travel.<br /><br />I do have another machine at home - mostly for pictures, genealogy, etc - that runs Vista Home Edition. It is interesting that I've had few problems with Home Edition on my home network, but the professional edition on our work network was a disaster.<br /><br />And, finally, my wife's laptop is a MacBook Pro, which she is finally getting used to now.<br /><br />So, I guess I spread my money around, but generally prefer (and contribute to) the open source community.Doug Williamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13388930827979766381noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-8564431063272061212009-07-19T08:02:42.091-07:002009-07-19T08:02:42.091-07:00I quit needing to write scripts for Windows just a...I quit needing to write scripts for Windows just about the time PowerShell came out. As a sometimes .NET programmer, I was kind of excited about it, but just didn't have the need to delve into it. Glad to hear someone say that they used it and liked it.<br /><br />As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the Unix world like what PowerShell promised, with the possible exception of the Ruby shell (which I also got excited about, right before I changed careers). It could be there, particularly given that Mono provides .NET CLR features. The tree of shells rooted in sh are not and probably cannot be that extensive.J.D. Rayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07031474024284784846noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-29710404496641142482009-07-13T13:26:56.048-07:002009-07-13T13:26:56.048-07:00As far as gaming is concerned, look to Google to c...As far as gaming is concerned, look to Google to change things when they release the Chrome OS. From what I've read it should be some version of Linux. With Google's support Linux gaming could take off like never before. <br /><br />The OS is intended to compete on the netbook stage, but do we think Google is likely to stop there?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-74703435069520129022009-07-12T20:34:05.444-07:002009-07-12T20:34:05.444-07:00Yes.Yes.Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-81720548758733491912009-07-12T19:41:04.654-07:002009-07-12T19:41:04.654-07:00You guys are all adorable.
You're just making...You guys are all adorable.<br /><br />You're just making all these words up, right?<br /><br />Right?Doc Nebulahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13052810933464744998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-60088491758435616742009-07-10T13:44:13.134-07:002009-07-10T13:44:13.134-07:00SF - there are enough command-line options with Un...SF - there are enough command-line options with Unison to get rsync-like behavior.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-82708749765832531842009-07-10T10:39:53.507-07:002009-07-10T10:39:53.507-07:00Anon,
I'm not that brave. I will say that the...Anon,<br /><br />I'm not that brave. I will say that the object oriented .NET based functionality in powershell is better than the text-interface functionality in bash, at my current level of understanding of each. (Almost identical, as it happens -- probably about 40 hours each.) I concede up front that this doesn't make me competent to have an opinion about the functionality of either full blown shell, except as it exposes its functionality to a new programmer. And there I can, and do: powershell is better.<br /><br />~~~~~<br /><br />The game support may become moot before too much longer. The PC as a viable gaming platform is in decline; consoles are winning. (And interesting example of anti-convergence.)Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-9208134036266056632009-07-10T09:43:41.023-07:002009-07-10T09:43:41.023-07:00Unison is great software, but it is for user-contr...Unison is great software, but it is for user-controlled synchronizing of two directory trees, rather than rsync's automatic copying of one tree to a different system. Both are great tools that I use regularly, but you can't really use Unison to replace rsync. (Unless there's some options in Unison I don't know about...)<br /><br />BTW, our household was split evenly between Windows and Linux right up until I got this lovely MacBook Pro last fall. Now it looks like over the next couple of years it will become an OS X / Linux household with maybe one dedicated Windows machine for work purposes....SFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02815984722071185197noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-44783078110492829272009-07-10T08:38:15.470-07:002009-07-10T08:38:15.470-07:00Windows powershell was a stab at duplicating the c...Windows powershell was a stab at duplicating the capabilities of various unix shells (sh, csh, bash, tcsh, ...). <br /><br />The only benefit that I see from it is that there is only 1 powershell, not 15 variations each with its own syntactical quirks. But hey ... it wouldn't be unix if there weren't a dozen ways to skin every cat.<br /><br />If you're brave, crack open the bash man page or download some interesting source code and work through the build process to see some of the various ways the shell can be used.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-56699526466502826252009-07-09T21:26:54.286-07:002009-07-09T21:26:54.286-07:00I agree with everything.
Just as a heads up, VLC ...I agree with everything.<br /><br />Just as a heads up, VLC Media Player 1.0 came out a few days ago. It's no longer beta (after 10 years lol)Atergoboyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07855979748734059016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-79638284311764909822009-07-09T13:16:42.691-07:002009-07-09T13:16:42.691-07:00Unison is a pretty decent cross-platform synchroni...Unison is a pretty decent cross-platform synchronizer, might be worth comparing to rsync.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1778489216730794604.post-14426277978036832009-07-09T12:35:35.137-07:002009-07-09T12:35:35.137-07:00While I agree on all points about it the only prob...While I agree on all points about it the only problem for me is game support...somedayTelpereonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15560463232415714340noreply@blogger.com