quote:
Originally posted by Karen:
But, just out of curiosity, how much space would I need for a Linux partition on my 'puter?
I would suggest about 4GB minimum if you can spare it (but you can certainly install in a lot less than that). And I certainly don't want to rush you into this. If you don't have the time to spend with it, it may not get a serious evaluation.
quote:
Originally posted by Karen:
True, but I have to add, Linux and other altOS platforms could still be "out there" more than they are. Particularly in the arena where their best prospects already ARE - the web. You don't need a huge advertising budget.
This may shock you but what you refer to as the "altOS" has a bigger market share of the web than MS OSs have, as much as MS is trying to reverse this. Go look at the
www.netcraft.com charts. You will see that Apache still has twice the web server market and virtually 0% of that Apache line is Apache/Win32. And I prefer to think of Win* has the "altOS". (-;
In fact in the good old days there was *no* Microsoft on the web, only UNIX. I was on the web before there was an Internet Explorer or a Netscape. I didn't get on in the beginning but I got on when the first graphical browser I new about was called "gopher" (and it was a text based graphical browser, but capable of hyperlinks/urls) and there was no HTTP protocol. Then the HTTP protocol was developed and the first Xwindows based graphical web browser I used was Mosaic (which I believe Microsoft took the source code for and and created Internet Explorer 1.0). Yeah, MS raped the university open source project to help really fan the monopoly flames. Thanks for nothin'!
There have been a good chunk of Linux web servers out there long before MS came out with the garbage known as IIS. MS does not yet have the monopoly on the web server end of things, and hopefully that will never change.
quote:
Originally posted by Karen:
They started putting up these flashing/animated/screaming banners that were so annoying that people started looking for software to block them.
I have been filtering ads for years with no special software installed on my desktops. I force all my desktops to go through my Proxy server (running on Linux) and it filters out all the ads. Another neat trick I do is create master zones in my DNS server for ".microsoft.com", ".msn.com", ".doubleclick.net", ".hitbox.com" etc, but with nothing in them. So every one of my home PCs believe that "
www.microsoft.com" doesn't exist. Yep, as far as my computers are concerned, Microsoft doesn't exist.
Just the way it should be.
And I don't have to put up with the popup windows either. In KDE's Konqueror web browser there is an option to turn off JavaScript popups, or you can also set it to "ask" if you want the window to pop up. In fact I disable JavaScript entirely in my browser by default, and then specifically turn it on for the sites I trust.
quote:
Originally posted by Karen:
(OK, here's one of them - a screen shot of the "blue screen of death" with only the words "Resistance is NOT futile!" Would you click? More importantly, do you think a viewer who had recently encountered the BSOD would click? Of course, the page the click leads to is just as important. That's where you have to explain the easy GUIs and ease of installation in terms that won't scare off the "just looking, thanks" folks.)
Maybe the open source group should start recruiting an open source advertising team. They have plenty of programmers that volunteer their time and expertise, they also have lawyers. But I don't believe they have an advertising team. Actually, RedHat and other publically traded companies have advertising departments/budgets. But it would be cool if there were a "non-affiliated" advertising group. There are also many web sites out there dedicated to Linux.
quote:
Originally posted by Karen:
Still, as you noted, this entails researching and finding the window manager program I want to use, finding programs to do the things I want to do... all this is provided (at great cost, but with NO extra work required) in most Windoze pre-installs. The "extra work" - no matter that it's not hard work - just doesn't appeal to the nail-focused computer user who already has a functional (if not ideal) hammer in their toolbelt.
I don't remember noting that at all. All Linux distros that I have ever seen come with both of the GUI environments I gave you links to and you have the choice of using either at login time. And the distros come with all of the development tools you could probably ever want/need including the SQL databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL). And include Apache/php, perl, etc. And include a great program development environment (GCC, and Kdevelop which is much like Visual C++). Does Microsoft include a copy of SQL Server? Does it include a copy of Visual Studio? Does it include an Office suite? Nope, Linux includes 200 times more applications than MS does. And they can all be installed and up and running on your first boot after the Linux installation. But this is something you will have to see for yourself if/when you give it a try.
Again I don't want to push you to try it until you are mentally ready and have some time to play. The more you play, the more you will like, even if you are slightly frustrated and naive in the beginning. If you stick with it I can bet that you will come to a point when you say "and why was it again I ever used Microsoft? This is so much easier...".
Again, don't expect to have that attitude right out of the gate. Because something isn't exactly the same as MS when they boot Linux they may get frustrated but the lights usually come on rather quickly. And then if you get really froggy, you can go beyond the GUI. The Linux GUIs are actually more powerful than MS, but when/if you get beyond the GUI you will see *real* power. You can't experience that in Windows because they build their GUI on top of a cardboard box.
[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]
