DAMN NON-MS APPLICATIONS!!

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by spinningheel4242:

Please, don't get me wrong, I think this fuckmicrosoft movement is great...or I wouldn't be here....it is just that I haven't seen the light yet.

I want to use Linux but so many sites/applications/games/ don't support it

I want to use non-MS word processors but they don't have the full functionality that MS does

I want to use non-MS but the reality is, the alternatives are just not ready yet....

Spin

There are a lot of people like you. If you and people like you were all to fire off a message to each of the vendors who write the software that you like (web masters, application companies, game companies, etc) with the above quote maybe we'll see some progress in some applications moving over to the good side. Just curious, is RedHat 8.0 one of the distributions that you tried?

[spinningheel4242]

Ok, a reply

I did install Redhat 8 and nothing but problems.  It wouldn't recognize my soundcard so, no sound.  It also messed up my partitioning and poof went my data on the other partitions.

I was using Desktop LX for a while (a few weeks) and it seemed pretty good.  I did have sound with this distro but it couldn't play movie clips (avi, mpg).  

As a long time windows users, I am use to things being like windows.  But, I also don't mind experimenting with other apps, os's to see if they are better/easier.  

But my main complaint, again, is that the linux distro's that I have tried don't totally encompass the everyday functionality that I used to.  I want to be able to listen to music (mp3, cd's, ogg etc), watch movies (dvd's, mpg, avi's etc), write emails, surf the net, burn cd's, fix my webpage using a wysiwyg editor, video edit, and play games.

Now, the linux distro's that I have tried (desktop Lx being the most successful) I have been able to surf the net, write emails, and listen to music like normal...but that is where the similarities stop.  I couldn't get the CD burner to work, couldn't find a good/comparable html editor like dreamweaver, couldn't watch videos/movies, couldn't play my games, couldn't video edit etc etc.

I would love to have a linux distro that could do the everyday stuff and then switch back to windows if I need to play a game.  Maybe I haven't found a good linux distro yet, I just don't know.

Also, everytime I try to set up my partitions for a linux distro, something goes wrong.  I use partition magic 8, create a new partition for an OS but something goes wrong.  Also, when I delete the linux distro, it doesn't get rid of grub...that bugs me cuz I have to reformat and reinstall (8 times last month!!)

On to a wordprocessor. I have used them all and I did like Corel 7 and 8.  But the newer versions constantly crash etc (on my computer).  MS Word just doesn't crash like Corel; therefore, my work isn't lost.  I also write research papers using footnotes/endnotes; create tables for data; create worksheets for teaching; and use graphics in my writings.  I have tried OpenOffice but it just doesn't include all of the tools I commonly use or, if it does, they don't work the same and there is formating errors etc.

I do use Mozilla as my default browser though.  It is fast, powerful, and full of features.  I do use MS for certain sites (CIBC and the Zone) because they don't work with Mozilla...yet.  Some features with Mozilla that I would like to see though, that are on MS, are autocomplete.  For example, if you search in google for a variety of things, you can click the search box and a list of your typed searches appears...I like having that!!

Ok, I guess that is enough of a rant for now.  I hope you guys comment on this and offer some solid and proven remarks/suggestions.

Spin

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by spinningheel4242:
I did install Redhat 8 and nothing but problems.  It wouldn't recognize my soundcard so, no sound.  It also messed up my partitioning and poof went my data on the other partitions.

I have never had these problems, but then I buy my hardware with Linux in mind. I have never had partitioning problems. I'm not sure what you could have done to lose your other partitions unless you didn't read the directions.

   

quote:
I was using Desktop LX for a while (a few weeks) and it seemed pretty good.  I did have sound with this distro but it couldn't play movie clips (avi, mpg).  

As far as multimedia goes, I have *far* better results in Linux than I have with any Windows apps. The multimedia apps may not come with your distro but they are easily downloaded/installed.

   

quote:
As a long time windows users, I am use to things being like windows.  But, I also don't mind experimenting with other apps, os's to see if they are better/easier.  

That's the key. How many hours of time do you have in Windows (all versions combined) vs how many hours have you put into learning Linux? They are not the same thing. They work different. Once you learn Linux I think you will see how much more power you have at your fingertips. It's not something that you can see immediately without putting forth a certain amount of effort.

   

quote:
But my main complaint, again, is that the linux distro's that I have tried don't totally encompass the everyday functionality that I used to.  I want to be able to listen to music (mp3, cd's, ogg etc), watch movies (dvd's, mpg, avi's etc), write emails, surf the net, burn cd's, fix my webpage using a wysiwyg editor, video edit, and play games.

You can do *all* of those things on Linux very easily (and I do). I used "kino" for capturing and editing video over firewire from my Sony digital video camera. I had DV Studio for Windows but I actually like kino a lot better. And I can create any video format I want with the wide variety of video/audio conversion utilities that exist. Maybe you should check out the "vcd" thread in the "Ask a Hacker/Coder" forum.

   

quote:
Now, the linux distro's that I have tried (desktop Lx being the most successful) I have been able to surf the net, write emails, and listen to music like normal...but that is where the similarities stop.  I couldn't get the CD burner to work, couldn't find a good/comparable html editor like dreamweaver, couldn't watch videos/movies, couldn't play my games, couldn't video edit etc etc.

Like I said, I have no problem doing *any* of this. CD burning in Linux works *much* better than it does in Windows. In fact I even have a P100 machine that I can burn CDs on and use it for other work. In Windows a machine of that class would just lock up if you tried to burn a CD and do something else. I use Xine or Ogle for DVD/VCDs. MPlayer for all video formats (it can play everything Windows can play and lots more because it can even use Windows codecs). I personally hate WYSIWYG editors but there is a good one for Linux much like FrontPage called Quantu Plus. There are countless apps like xmms for playing audio (mp3, ogg, etc). xmms is a skinable player very very much like winamp.

 

quote:
I would love to have a linux distro that could do the everyday stuff and then switch back to windows if I need to play a game.  Maybe I haven't found a good linux distro yet, I just don't know.

I think RedHat 8.0 is very good for a person such as yourself. And there are some games that work great in Linux. The idSoftware games (Quake, RCW, Doom, etc) have native Linux ports. Unreal Tournament has a Linux port. Some other Windows games work well under Wine/WineX. But I will not argue with you on this one, games selection is not good for Linux (good thing I don't care about games). It would be nice if people like you send a nice email to your favorite game vendors and ask them to someday think about porting to Linux so you have a choice. The more requests they get the more likely they will be to port.

   

quote:
Also, everytime I try to set up my partitions for a linux distro, something goes wrong.  I use partition magic 8, create a new partition for an OS but something goes wrong.  Also, when I delete the linux distro, it doesn't get rid of grub...that bugs me cuz I have to reformat and reinstall (8 times last month!!)

You don't have to reformat to get rid of GRUB or LILO from your MBR. The easiest way for you is to have a DOS or Windows bootable floppy handy with a copy of FDISK.EXE on it. Boot it and type "FDISK /MBR". Problem solved.

   

quote:
On to a wordprocessor. I have used them all and I did like Corel 7 and 8.  But the newer versions constantly crash etc (on my computer).  MS Word just doesn't crash like Corel; therefore, my work isn't lost.  I also write research papers using footnotes/endnotes; create tables for data; create worksheets for teaching; and use graphics in my writings.  I have tried OpenOffice but it just doesn't include all of the tools I commonly use or, if it does, they don't work the same and there is formating errors etc.

I have never had a problem with OpenOffice, nor has my duaghter who is a freshman in high school and uses it for all of her school work. By formatting errors, I will assume that you mean formatting errors when opening a Microsoft formatted document. If so, try opening a Native OpenOffice file in Microsoft Office and see how good it looks (you won't be able to even open it).

   

quote:
I do use Mozilla as my default browser though.  It is fast, powerful, and full of features.  I do use MS for certain sites (CIBC and the Zone) because they don't work with Mozilla...yet.  Some features with Mozilla that I would like to see though, that are on MS, are autocomplete.  For example, if you search in google for a variety of things, you can click the search box and a list of your typed searches appears...I like having that!!

Send your feature requests to the Mozilla programming team, they will add them for you.

   

quote:
Ok, I guess that is enough of a rant for now.  I hope you guys comment on this and offer some solid and proven remarks/suggestions.

I don't recall *ever* hearing you ask for help here on any of the issues you brought up in this message. If you would like to try again, but ask for help this time, most of us will try very hard to solve any of your issues. But if you have your mind already made up then there's not much point now is there?

[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Calum]

spinningheel, you have a closed mind, i think, from your comments, you need to embrace the concept of open source software. Here, if you ask for help, you will get it (in general, not specific to this site).

Also, linux IS totally different to windows. don't be fooled by interfaces that try to trick you into thinking it is similar to windows. I was as frustrated as you are with my buggy laptop with red hat 7.0 on it to start with, but i have persevered, as i had to do with windows the year before, and now that i know how to use both OSs, i prefer linux by a long shot for far too many reasons to list.

Invest and you will get returns, ask and you shall be answered.

[spinningheel4242]

Ok, I need to respond to this one.  I really don't think I am close minded.  If I was, I would never know this site existed...

Also, I am not asking direct questions but I am...I am explaining problems I am finding with non-MS apps and hoping that someone will offer suggestions and/or alternatives.  

Personally, I won't be giving up windoze because of my games and other related junk.  But, I do want to find a suitable, everyday replacement for web browsing, word processing, etc...

As being a newbie, I need help with what linux distro would be the best and easiest to set up.  Also, I will probably get help on how to fix any problems that crop up with a new linux install.

I have resigned to the fact that my hundreds of older MS Word documents need MS Word to properly display them.  But, all of my new documents are going to be OpenOffice or some alternative....the only problem is trying to convert the wife  

I would also appreciate anyone that can direct me to a thread/site that can easily and susinctly partition my harddrive, using partition magic 8.

Also, some previous posts commented that linux had better video editing and cd burning software than windoze....please tell me what distro you were running because Lycoris's Desktop/LX wasn't a success.

So, thanks for all of the input and hope to hear back soon.

Spin

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by spinningheel4242:
Also, I am not asking direct questions but I am...I am explaining problems I am finding with non-MS apps and hoping that someone will offer suggestions and/or alternatives.  

Well then you should have written your sentences in the form of a question instead of what appeared to be a slam.

       

quote:
Personally, I won't be giving up windoze because of my games and other related junk.  But, I do want to find a suitable, everyday replacement for web browsing, word processing, etc...

Perfectly natural transgression.

       

quote:
As being a newbie, I need help with what linux distro would be the best and easiest to set up.  Also, I will probably get help on how to fix any problems that crop up with a new linux install.

If you want help from me, I would suggest RedHat 8.0 as this is my current distro of choice (I've been running Linux for 10 years).

       

quote:
I have resigned to the fact that my hundreds of older MS Word documents need MS Word to properly display them.  But, all of my new documents are going to be OpenOffice or some alternative....the only problem is trying to convert the wife                  

That was easy for me. Stuck the Linux CD in and installed over Windows. Until she can figure out how to install Windows she'll be using Linux. Haven't heard any complaints out of my wife *or* my kids. Actually I've heard a lot of complaints, but they weren't computer related.    

       

quote:
I would also appreciate anyone that can direct me to a thread/site that can easily and susinctly partition my harddrive, using partition magic 8.

There are several threads on this, you can do a search at the top of this page, but basically the only thing you'll want to use Partition Magic for is to shrink the size of your Windows partition to make enough free space on the disk to install Linux. Use Linux to create the Linux partitions. Normally you'll want to do a "custom" install so that it will not wipe out your entire drive and install Linux, but give you a chance to create partitions in the free space that you have created with Partition Magic. I would suggest at least 5GB of free space for Linux. In fact I would strongly suggest more than that if you can afford it. 10GB or more would be much better as you want room to work, especially if you are going to be doing some multimedia work/editing.

When you boot and do a "custom" install if you are using RedHat you will be prompted to use either "Disk Druid" or "fdisk" to create your Linux partitions, select "Disk Druid" and follow these instructions.

I would suggest making a 256MB or 512MB "swap" (swap partition type) partition depending on how much RAM you have, a 50MB "/boot" partition (ext3 partition type), and use the rest of the free space to make a "/" (root) partition (ext3 partition type). I also usually give my Windows partition a mount point at this time so I don't have to add it after the installation. Make sure in the boot loader configuration you have both RedHat and Windows selected so you can dual boot.

Here's the full installation guide

       

quote:
Also, some previous posts commented that linux had better video editing and cd burning software than windoze....please tell me what distro you were running because Lycoris's Desktop/LX wasn't a success.

If you install RedHat 8.0 I will give you instructions on how to install some really good multimedia software automatically off the net (assuming all your network hardware is compatible and you have network access).

Good luck!

[ November 02, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[dbl221]

The telephone never had any "killer-app" but it still made it...its kiiller-app is and was communication.

The killer-app is open source, you just can't see it yet.  Just like the early telephone users.

Oh and M$ OS's and products are crap.  If they were any good I wouldn't have a job "supporting" them.

[spinningheel4242]

Ok, my questions were not in the form of a question for a point....I was addressing another post and I am also stating a point.  Thus, I negate the need to frame my statement in a question.  Second, I have installed Redhat 8 once and nothing but problems.  I have a dell xps600 with 840mb ram, pioneer dvd, lg 40x re-writer, 32 gig hd, turtle beach montego soundcard, diamond viper 32mb video card.  As per my experience, redhat didn't work correctly nor could I figure out how to correct the problem (could play sound...couldn't detect sound card).

I guess I could put the linux partition at the beginning of the harddrive and then the windoze...

I would like to use boot magic to boot between OS's though...is that possible or should I use grub or whatever?

Spin

[voidmain]

There are several Turtle Beach audio cards on RedHat's compatibility list, Montego not being one of them. In fact I found an older document that states specifically that the Montego is unsupported.  I find no mention of that card in the kernel source (used on all distros) but there may have been an added module or maybe it can use one of the other drivers. Maybe someone else on this board has experience with that card, I don't.

I would check every piece of equipment that you have with RedHat's compatibility list (they have a nice database to search). Figure out where your potential issues are, sound being one of them. Use google to find out as much as you can regarding non-compatible equipment to see if there are any workarounds. The fact that you said it worked in another distro is promising as that would indicate there is a sound driver for it and it could be added to RedHat.

I would not move Windows. Leave it at the beginning of the drive and just shrink it with Parition magic (move the end of the partition to the left until you have enough free space at the end of the drive). Install Linux at the end.

You can use other boot loaders to boot Linux but you will at least have to install Lilo on the partition boot sector instead of the master boot record (MBR). But I really don't know why you would want to do that. Both GRUB and LILO work great.

[ November 02, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[spinningheel4242]

Excellent,
Thanks for the input...now that is what I was looking for.

Also, is there another Linux distro that I should try or is Redhat going to be the best??

Cheers

Spin

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by spinningheel4242:
Also, is there another Linux distro that I should try or is Redhat going to be the best??

I haven't tried all 500+ distributions so there is no way I can answer that. All I can say is that of the ones that I have tried I would consider RedHat to generally be the best for most people at this point and time (and has been for me for the last 6 or 7 years). SuSe is right up there and Mandrake is as well. If you are not a new user and don't care about a flashy installer, Debian is probably the best, especially true if Free/Open is important to you.

And like I said, since RedHat is the one I am most familiar with, I can provide better quality help on that distro. There are plenty of people who are more familiar with the other distros who can also provide good help with those. Much of it is common across all distros but there are distro specific issues.

[preacher]

You will be missing the quantity of games available to the windows OS, but if you are determined enough, you might be able to find a lot of the old Loki titles. So far Ive found Quake 3, Heretic 2, and Railroad Tycoon 2. I just wish I could find the Loki Sim City 3000. I would kill for that. Most distros include the best linux based game anyway. BZFLAG!!!!!! Its a first person tank shooter. They even have a windows port(lol, usually its the other way around). Oh and I recently found out they have a Mac Os X version now too.

[spinningheel4242]

Ok, I am trying out RH8 now and like it...other than my sound doesn't work.

But my main complaint about Linux is that it is too splintered to offer any real help or common goal.  As void said, there are 500+ distro's etc...

That is the main problem of linux and it will never be solved.  Pro-linux individuals praise linux and promote it but wait a minute...which one are they talking about.  Yes, Linux is the basis of all distro's etc...but not having one or two main distro's will forever kill linux becoming a major desktop replacement.  

It is because of that fact that major companies haven't wasted their money developing apps to run on linux...there are just too many variations...ultimately the limiting factor of open source.

It would be best if all of the open source info came into a  melting pot and out popped a universal linux distro...now wouldn't that be great??

Spin

[emh]

quote:
But my main complaint about Linux is that it is too splintered to offer any real help or common goal. As void said, there are 500+ distro's etc...

That is the main problem of linux and it will never be solved. Pro-linux individuals praise linux and promote it but wait a minute...which one are they talking about. Yes, Linux is the basis of all distro's etc...but not having one or two main distro's will forever kill linux becoming a major desktop replacement.

There are two or three major distros that companies write for, which are Red Hat, Mandrake, and SuSe.  If any vendor writes anything for Linux, they usually concentrate on these three, since they're the most user-friendly and popular (since Xandros, Lycoris, and Lindows haven't been around long enough to gain a huge amount of following) They almost always include a tar.gz file for advanced users, and pretty much if anyone uses a distro other than the above three, they're advanced users anyway.  No, they don't have to support all 500+ distributions.  They can just concentrate on the two or three most popular ones.  Linux can still become a major desktop replacement even with more than 500 distributions.  People will select a distribution based on their needs, but be guaranteed that their software will work on it since it is a Linux platform.

[bloodygoodent]

If you are using... which you probably aren't... convert to the new JBrowse... this can be DLed at www.joshbart.com/jbrowse .  This is compatible with ALL forms of HTML and XML and Java/Javascript.  It is definetely the best browser I have ever used.  As for the BSD/UNIX/Linux people, then there are compatibility problems... but JBrowse will hopefully be out for Linux and Mac January.  I am not a part of the JBrowse team (and I never would be, I am a dedicated FreeBSD user), but a friend of mine personally knows this "Josh Bart" (he's Canadian or something) and I constantly hear of devolopment for JBrowse

Get JBrowse