On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 1:15 AM, Faldegast <email address hidden> wrote:
>> Guess what: He migrated back to Windows as he noticed a whole bunch of
>> workarounds he needed to do.
> What about virtualbox + Windows + IE?

Yes, he could have done that - and tried it. But just think about any
hyperlink (be it a TIF, PDF etc then all opening in the virtualbox
where he then needs to have an application for everything there that
it can be opened. Basically he then needs to keep two systems
up-to-date). And that was just one of the annoyances - the IE-only
app.


>> Not to tell about some TeamViewer glitches on Linux (extremely
>> annoying when TeamViewer is one of the only remote-support tools that
>> work on Linux and you either pay for it when using it for the daily
>> job).
> There are also rdesktop for RDP. But yes we would need a lot more tools.

RDP is definitely no alternative to TeamViewer! - For RDP you need an
already established VPN connection (as neither the dummy Windows-Admin
is exposing RDP port directly to the internet). Only a few customers
give VPN to you so that you can connect whenever you want.


> That's why I install RHEL/CentOS on novice users. Its far from fancy, but noone can blame EL for being unstable.

But those are a huge step back usually because they come with medieval
versions of several software (e.g. LibreOffice), isn't it?


>> So - by now - status for me is:
>> a) I finally (after a lot of extra analyses, bug reporting, testing
>> etc) got - again - a very stable system with Ubuntu 12.04 + kernel
>> 3.5.0-18. And this although I use a Canonical-certified machine!
>> Unfortunately with some manual udpates that now mean I don't get newer
>> versions automatically through normal update channel. - However, at
>> least I am ok.
> That's bad. Certified hardware should be supported, or the certification becomes useless.

To be honest: I was deciding for the new laptop a few weeks after
12.04 release and my laptop was certified for 11.10 - and I am running
12.04 on it now. But it was the first certified hardware and I
couldn't think of experiencing more problems than ever before.


> That's why I stick to EL when I can. It has been rock solid for man years and do not disappoint me.
> Of course with three different mayor versions (4, 5 and 6) supported in parallel they can make sure
> that the two first are rock solid while keeping the latest a bit edgy.
> However I am sure that when they release EL 7 this will also apply to EL 6.

Apart from the enterprise versions comming around the corner with old
versions usually (I know also from Debian) I was switching from Fedora
to Ubuntu because Fedora is lacking hardware support. Interestingly
(although all distributions somehow use the common Linux kernel)
Ubuntu for me always showed the best hardware support.


> Ubuntu is a lot sexier, but on enterprise servers i prefer stable and reliable.

It's not just about "sexier". Although I initially did not like Unity,
know I got more effective and don't want to miss it anymore. IMHO
times of classic task bars are over and I didn't manage to get Cairo
dock or AWN to the stability and comfort of Unity - even after many
hours of playing around with the settings.


> This is the mayor issue today. The popularity of Firefox and Chrome did
> a lot for Linux in defeating IE.

Yes, indeed - I agree. Without breaking the monopoly of IE situation
for Linux-users would be far worse!


> Java may be further ahead because OpenJFX and possible OpenGL
> support in the Java standard. However the development process are not
> very transparent.

Fortunately I see a few business applications are using Java even for
there desktop client (on server side a lot is Java, but on the desktop
many stick to Windows-only .net clients). Java is IMHO ahead even for
GUI development - just try to get a .net GUI to adapt it's widget
sizes to different languages for example, which in Java is no problem
since years, I couldn't get this feature working on .net neither using
Winforms nor using WPF. Microsoft is causing a lot of migration work
to developers and I got more and more angry upon Microsoft. After many
years of Windows-only-Development, when switching to Java (and I only
switched my focus to Java a few years ago) I started to enjoy
programming again.


> Also office documents continue to be a problem. Documents from open
> /libre-office do not work well with Microsoft Office and vice versa.
> This is the far worst problem. One solution would be to have a
> OpenOffice-comatible import filter for Microsoft Office. However we also
> be able to open Office documents properly.

This is the wrong way IMHO. OO and LO work fine on Windows. People on
Windows even should use that. :-)


> One of my brightest ideas here are to make a linux emulation layer for
> Windows. Similar to what Wine is to Linux.

This could be helpful, but again an addional huge extra piece that
will suffer from the same incompatibilities as Wine does. My
experience with wine is that a) only a very few stuff is really
working on wine and b) you are exposed to Windows viruses. On the
Linux side there are already such layers available like cygwin or
xming. Tried both and did not get convinced.


> Then we could RPM/DEB our
> applications to a windows system and have some of the Linux experience
> which will smoothen the migration. I know that many Windows users would
> use it just because of the package management.

If you bring such Linux features to Windows there would be even less
pressure for people to migrate to Linux. Package management is one of
the benefits one gets when switching to Linux. Personally I would say:
Windows users should drown in their own DLL hell!


> Who don't remember the
> pain of getting openoffice + pidgin + firefox and other FOSS
> applications AND manually keep them all updated?

LibreOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird all have their own update-feature
and already automatically update on Windows.


On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 9:34 AM, Tom <email address hidden> wrote:
> The problem with the MS Office formats us that they are not consistent
> across different versions of MS Office itself. [...]

Of course, the Microsoft formats are not the choice when you want a
format that can be read in a reliable way even 15 years from now.
Basically when archiving documents pretty everybody converts those
documents to PDF. Of course they could also use the open office
formats and sign them to be safe against content change. OO/LO would
support that out-of-the-box.


> So, when it's an MS program that fails to read an older version of the current MS format then
> it's the author that gets blamed.
> When it's a non-MS program then it's IT Support or the program that gets blamed.

You are right - but you now gave me another argument that would help
me after the day when I will decide to pay back Windows users with the
same ignorance I get from them.


> The newest version of MS Office (called 365 this time) claims to have
> proper support for OpenDocument Format 1.2.  MSO 2010 and 2007 only
> supported ODF 1.0 which was quite a long way behind what all the other
> Office Suites were using at the time. So MS were able to claim they
> supported ODF and try to blame all the other Suites for any problems.

One thing is opening and reading those formats. The other thing is
saving it back in the same manner that OO/LO does not get the shit
that MS is putting into the documents then. Just think of destroying
styles. I really tried my best in designing templates that are
compatible and can be used without major flaws in both office suites.
I failed! It is impossible (even when assuming everybody is using MS
Office 2010)! So the only way to get painless document sharing across
OS is to get Windows-users to use OO/LO - fullstop.


> Why aren't they worried about what is going to happen to their old documents.
> They seem to just accept and be happy with the fact that any documents they might need to access in a few years time,
> say around 5years, needs to be printed out because it wont be readable otherwise.
> How is it that people are ok with that??

Some ignore the problem but serious companies convert their documents
to PDF (or in the past often to TIF) which of course is not for
editing then. Where editable versions are archived most indeed just
use the original .doc, .docx etc formats and just close their eyes and
hope (I know it as I am working in DMS and ECM field since years).


On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 6:27 PM, Graham <email address hidden> wrote:
> The problem is how to fix this bug without falling into that same devils trap.

Not sure if I understand what you mean with "that same devils trap"?
Which trap? Of incompatible formats? Or are you speaking of the main
idea of bug 1 in having choice of OS when buying a PC?


> I'm sure Bill Gates with his "Our mission was to put a computer in every
> home and we've succeeded" stance feels very exonerated but this is one
> "good intention" road which quite definitely did lead to hell.

No, greed and the monopoly lead to hell, not the idea to put a
computer in every home (apart from the fact that we are fare away from
computer at every home - when you really look at world population and
computer owners).

Of course, when I say that everybody should use open office or libre
office instead could lead from one monopoly to another - but there is
a difference: Look at what happened with Open Office when Oracle tried
to close it. OO got forked in an instant and now basically everybody
switched to LO and Oracle lost a lot of trust. So investing into OO
(or now LO) was and is always better than investing into Microsoft
Office if you look at investment risk / protection.


Best regards, Martin.