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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
As do I, but I'm not fanatic about it. Basic HW support on the mobo/CPU end seems largely there. The problem children are things like graphics cards.
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Agreed.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
It could be worse than it is.
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Absolutely. Things are better now than they ever have been, IMO. Your chances of a successful install (without even doing any research on the hardware before you attempt it) is very high, vs. just a few years ago. And with the ability to try out a distribution on a piece of hardware using a USB drive or some other live install, this is made even easier.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
The vendor insisted developers sign an NDA before they would even release the basic info that would allow someone to write a driver. Don't even think about releasing source for it...
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Yeah, this is a bummer. And why seeing people like Intel become so involved is a good thing.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
But then, Linux isn't a graphics platform in general.
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Definitely. There have been some pushes recently to make it more so, but nothing revolutionary.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
If you're in the graphic arts, for example, in an agency or design shop, you run Photoshop on a Mac. Yes, Linux has the Gimp, but it's not Photoshop. Nothing is.
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Yep. The Gimp is something I use occasionally almost more like an oddity or rarity. For my basic needs I prefer Paint.net.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Likewise, for DTP you run Adobe InDesign because it's the industry standard. You don't run Scribus.
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Yeah, there are a ton of examples like this in the OSS world.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
It was accidental. Prior to falling into the deep end of the computer pool and learning to swim, I was variously a structural and ornamental metalworker, museum exhibit builder/maintainer, alternative energy worker, and graphic designer/print production guy among other things.
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A jack of all trades!
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
The bank ran one of everything ever made, and I defined my job as "If it's a computer, I get to play with it", so I logged time on DEC minicomputers and IBM PCs when the original IBM PC was first appearing on desktops as an engine to run Lotus 1,2,3.
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Very cool.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I just tell people I'm still figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.  |
Nice!
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I'm a neutral in the OS wars.
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Same here. But I'm a weird neutral in that I LOVE most of the common operating systems. Windows, Chrome OS, Mac OS X, iOS, Android (including Amazon's Fire OS fork), GNU/Linux distributions, BSDs, etc., I think all of these things are awesome. I think people forget while they are bashing whatever it is that they don't like that all of these platforms are pretty incredible and interesting.
I'm not in the computer business because I despise everything that I don't use/advocate. I'm in it because I have a passion for all of this stuff. Dominant players and underdogs alike.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I've been around long enough and worked on enough different gear to have a feel for the myriad ways problems can be addressed, and the question is which solution is best for the problem. It may well not be Linux.
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I agree absolutely. This is the level-headed approach, and it makes the most sense to me.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I more or less agree with a comment Richard Stallman made to the effect that all OSes sucked, but Unix sucked less, and was therefore the model Gnu was supporting.
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Stallman is certainly an opinionated and interesting person. I love his "Negative in the freedom dimension" quote.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
But yes, things have changed dramatically. My Palm OS PDA has a faster processor, more RAM, and more storage than my original Windows desktop machine. Hardware gets steadily smaller, faster, and cheaper.
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When I was in High School I tried to do almost everything on my Palm M105 because I had this crazy fantasy that handheld computers that go with you everywhere in your pocket were preferable to workstations that sat in one corner of a room. I read on it. Wrote papers on it. Played games on it. Used it as a calculator. Programmed on/for it. Read mobile focused magazines about it (and Pocket PC, which I desired but couldn't afford until college). I wanted to do the internet on it as well, but I couldn't afford the little modem attachment to my eternal regret (although the internet of the day would have been mostly terrible on it, I'm sure). EVERYTHING. I then got an m125, a Sony Palm, the Casio Cassiopeia E-125, loved that thing, and a Toshiba Pocket PC (like e315, or 310, or something). Now we have incredible tablets and smartphones that I use more during the average day than my main laptop.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I've spent a fair bit of time setting up systems so the users didn't have to RTFM.
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That's the way to do it. I tried for years to do something similar with my parents computers. But they ALWAYS found a way to mess them up and ended up having to call me regularly to get basic things done. Finally, I convinced them to try a Chrome OS device and some tablets and (fingers crossed) they have not had a single problem thus far that has required my intervention.
(But even when their computers went wonky... I still loved it. I can't help it, I like working with software and hardware and getting things working properly. On the other hand, it does make me very happy that they can simply use their technology to get the things done that they want to do without having to fight it. We have come a long way.)