XP and Vista question

[Bob Warren]

Luis wrote:

> > A passing suggestion: Try Ubuntu 6.0.6 LTS. It now has installers for  
> > proprietary/'non-free' gfx card drivers, which used to be a bugbear  
> > withe some distros.
> > If you're looking for a little more eye candy then try Kubuntu.
> > All fits on one CD, and the Synaptic Package Manager is a breeze to  
> > use, although for the gfx drivers I used Envy from the terminal  
> > (Install Envy via Synaptic, logout, do a Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get to a  
> > terminal login. Login, run envy. Does ATI and Nvidia).
> > Running sweet on a 2 year old Dell.
>   
Richard wrote:

>Thanks to a recommendation from Phil Davis, I installed it two months 
ago and have been quite happy with it.  Much simpler and more well 
integrated than the Red Hat installation I used to use, and cheaper than 
my copy of Linspire.  Right now Ubuntu is my favorite Linux by far.

Now if only we can get some of the other distro builders to stop 
reinventing their wheels and contribute their resources to Ubuntu instead.

And when that happens (somewhere between the time pigs fly and when hell 
freezes over) we'll have to get the Gnome and KDE teams to integrate 
into a single fully kick-ass window manager.

When those two tasks are done, Linux will be well poised to kick 
Microsoft's butt on the desktop at least as effectively as they've done 
on the server.

------------------------------------------------------------

My own understanding is helped by a linguistic model. Some time ago people had the idea of taking what they considered to be the "best" characteristics of the world's languages and rolling them together into a single optimized form, and what emerged was "Esperanto". It failed miserably. One reason for this could be the fact that it was not a "natural" language and that the scientists did not appreciate the complexity of linguistic mechanisms. For example, natural languages are biological products, and as such they are necessarily only half logical.

If you asked speakers of Portuguese or Bulgarian to stop wasting their 
time and to speak another language instead, they would probably get 
around to doing it when pigs fly or hell freezes over. But asking them 
to speak a "second" language is a different matter. When I asked a taxi 
driver in Amsterdam why everybody's English was so fantastically good, 
he answered me with a question: "What's the use of Dutch?" Yet Dutch 
shows no signs of dying in Holland.

No, a "natural" language (English) has become the second language of the 
world. This was helped by the fairly large number of native speakers, 
but above all it was helped by the enormously diverse distribution in 
different places. (More people speak Chinese for example, but the 
distribution of Chinese extends little beyond China itself.)

Ubuntu is perhaps poised to become the world's second operating system, 
and it is quite well distributed already. The Ubuntu company (Canonical) 
have the professionalism, the ethics and the clout. Does that mean that 
Red Hat, Linspire, Puppy and the KDE interface need to die? Far from it. 
I see no reason why they should not maintain their followers, their 
peculiarities, and their dignity, and to continue to make their valuable 
contributions and innovations. They are doing their thing! "Live and let 
live" is the lemma we need to practise in my opinion.

The very last thing we want to see is another monster like Microsoft, 
but such a situation could well arise again if we do not maintain the 
very mechanisms Linux was designed to neutralize. I'm talking about 
freedom, openness, diversity (multiple perception), clean competition, 
ethics, and the like.

Talking is easy, particularly since I am not a professional programmer 
with professional responsibilities. I can do what I like, when I like, 
without suffering any serious consequences. But even taking into account 
the much more difficult situation of the professional programmer and the 
dependency he/she suffers, there is something of a drug culture 
associated with the continuing usage of Windows and the enormous 
reluctance to change for the better. Yes, Microsoft gained a monopoly 
because Windows was the first and only operating system for PCs on the 
market, but that does not totally explain the momentum of their monopoly 
nowadays. Drugs pretend to be our friend, but in fact they are 
unfailingly our enemy, and in they end they can even kill us. Yet when 
we are dependent on a drug, even if we have the motivation to change in 
some way, actually doing it is the most difficult thing in the world, 
unless we have some idea of how to achieve it. In the final analysis, I 
think the general secret in all of this is to stop thinking in terms of 
"either/or" and to start thinking in terms of "both-and". Nobody needs 
to leave Windows entirely in order to use Linux, so why use the "cold 
turkey" method in alleviating oneself of this drug we call "Windows"? 
No, keep it around to do the little things it is really useful for (i.e. 
"exploit" it), but also investigate the exciting and creative aspects of 
the promising new world known collectively as "Linux"!

Sorry, you pressed my button...


By the way, Ubuntu is entirely free. If you cannot manage to download 
it, they will even send you a CD free of charge.

Bob