All Things Microsoft > Microsoft Software
Image File Execution Options
Calum:
--- Quote from: anphanax ---And for those of you who are going to make a ... "what a perfect time to install Linux" comment, this isn't my computer that I did this to. It was my brothers. I didn't expect this to happen.
My brother uses Firefox, but probably wouldn't be comfortable under Linux. If you guys can convince me Linux has enough "killer apps", and that it has a polished office suite with decent compatibility for MS Office, i might consider it.
Problem these days, is that instructors *DEMAND* the students use Microsoft Office (down to the exact edition\version). No Wordpad, No Corel Wordpefect, No OpenOffice.org, No AbiWord...
EDIT: And even if it was my computer, I still couldn't switch it to Linux. I host two servers written for Microsoft Windows. They are game servers, and in their current state, are NOT portable.
--- End quote ---
what a great time for your brother to install linux, or for you to install it on your brother's computer. (remembering that none of us are getting paid to "convince" you of anything, so why not have a go at convincing yourself?)
and what a great time for you to learn how to code your game servers natively from scratch under linux! :-D
muzzy:
Instructors demand microsoft office? Are they also providing you the software licenses? If not, demand that you're allowed to return papers as PDF. How the heck can the instructors demand you to give money to some specific company? That's sick, and should be made illegal if it isn't already. "As a part of this course, you have to pay $100 extra fee to Muzzy Software Fund. No, you won't get any value for the money, you just have to do it. Pay or fail the class, Suckers!"
anphanax:
They're not my servers. I'm hosting them for someone else. They're written in Visual Basic 6.0.
As for the "me convincing myself" thing, that's not going to happen. Even with crap like this, i've simply gotten too used to Windows and spent too much time learning to code for it. Time investment is important to people. I have nothing against Linux, and know that it can be used in many places where using Windows wouldn't be a good idea, but for the desktop, it's still a hard sell and will remain so, at least for me. Hell, i'm not even convinced anymore that open source is all that great (I will probably be flamed to death on this). Open source programs crash for no apparent reason, just like closed sourced ones do (xchat, firefox, and openoffice.org are examples of this). I HATE program crashes. I know there's a bigger picture involved here, but still. If FOSS developers are so "talented" and "smart" and "innovative" and "perfect", this shouldn't happen in the first place. I've seen lots of arrogant people bash others for their coding mistakes, then watch them get flooded with bug reports, so... The people with the "FOSS programmers are better an all other programmers" attitude can go to hell. The Open Source model works best when you have the most people looking at projects (more people = more good programmers), so I would think you would WANT to try and convince people to move over to open source.
Note: Telling me to look at the code and try and fix these "no apparent reason" crashes is stupid. Do I look like a linux programmer? Didn't think so... I don't have as much free time as I used to either, nor do I want to spend it learning a platform that I don't use very often because I have one that already works ok. Plus, my linux system doesn't have a keyboard, mouse, or monitor, so... not a big fan of using it at the moment.
Sorry if I seem angry, but this is very stressful. I've never really run into a Windows problem before where I wasn't sure how to fix it.
muzzy:
"no apparent reason" crashes can indeed be complex issues, and more often that people realize, it's because of hardware issues. Some people just keep experiencing strange crashes, and instead of testing their system they blame it on all the different software. Faulty memory can do the most mysterious things and might go undetected for months at a time until something strange happens. Faulty PSU can cause mystery freezes, sometimes even repeatable ones. Faulty/overclocked CPU too, it might work just great for hours and hours straight of intense calculation, and then just do something wrong. A lot of people think that faulty hardware would result into the system not booting at all, or not seeming to work at all... not quite true!
Also, open source isn't about software quality. Regarding that, a lot of OSS apps suck as you noted. The important difference is freedom, and that's an ideological difference. I'd like them software freedoms, but nothing's going to happen by just using OSS at current rate. Software patents are coming to ruin everyone's day, and a lot of OSS apps are becoming illegal. IMO, the development model of open source software only reflects the freedom of the software, which might or might not lead to quality stuff.
Orethrius:
--- Quote from: muzzy ---Also, open source isn't about software quality. Regarding that, a lot of OSS apps suck as you noted.
--- End quote ---
Maybe you'd like to tell Sean Egan that one. Or, for that matter, see how well you can sell that line to Sourceforge.
--- Quote ---The important difference is freedom, and that's an ideological difference.
--- End quote ---
True - free software is free software is free software. Don't be so quick to write it off. ;)
--- Quote ---I'd like them software freedoms, but nothing's going to happen by just using OSS at current rate.
--- End quote ---
Hear that, folks? Muzzy says we need to up FOSS usage by getting decent developers involved! Yay Muzzy! :D
--- Quote ---Software patents are coming to ruin everyone's day, and a lot of OSS apps are becoming illegal.
--- End quote ---
Yes, and God knows people don't download MP3s, either. I'll continue to use FOSS in absentia of a lawful government, and if you don't care to do the same you know where to stick that EULA. :p
--- Quote ---IMO, the development model of open source software only reflects the freedom of the software, which might or might not lead to quality stuff.
--- End quote ---
This is - unfortunately - true. Fortunately, FOSS has coders that can distinguish crap and code it out. Windows? Yeah, it has people that can attempt to recreate the code. Too bad current disassemblers are such amazing horseshit. :p
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version