Originally posted by russofris
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OS X Is No Longer On My Main System, But I Already Have Regrets
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Originally posted by russofris View PostThis is hard to explain, and even if I do, a number of people won't understand.
Many of us don't want to 'configure' our desktop. We want to make videos of our kid's soccer games and send the highlights to their grandparents. We don't want to choose a distribution, we want to book reservations at a campsite. The people who want to tinker will always exist, and it's good that they do, because it fosters innovation and evolution. Unfortunately, tinkerers often do not understand that non-tinkerers exist and have their own non tinkering agenda.
Linux based operating systems have the potential to become the dominant Desktop/PC/Workstation OS, but every time someone puts money behind it, they blow it. All it would take is a beautiful pre-configured UI, and stringent UI guidelines for application developers. Every time it appears we're about to get this, we end up with a re-incarnation of the Office95 toolbar or a UI designed for a 4-8" personal-device forced onto our 27" screens.Last edited by Cyber Killer; 14 March 2014, 01:28 AM.
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Improving Power Consumption
You can make some pretty decent improvements to your battery life by using powertop. It added roughly an hour of battery life for me.
See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/powertop
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Originally posted by Cyber Killer View PostHow can you not want to do at least a preliminary configuration to the tool that you want to use?! Computers are complicated machines, they are not something like a hammer (hell, even hammers come in a variety of sizes and shapes). You're doing it wrong.
"Oh you prefer red than blue? Red is a warmer color, so you're wrong."
Using a tailored desktop makes you gain time while you use it, but lose time to configure it.
If you change machines and OS regularly, it might not be worth the effort. Especially when using an OS that is well configured out of the box will make you gain the same time while losing none.
And sophistication of the tool is not an excuse, I don't fine tune a car's injection and suspension when I buy one. I adjust the seat and the mirror in 10 seconds (and without googling or checking the user manual), and I expect the rest to work seamlessly.
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Originally posted by erendorn View PostAnd sophistication of the tool is not an excuse, I don't fine tune a car's injection and suspension when I buy one. I adjust the seat and the mirror in 10 seconds (and without googling or checking the user manual), and I expect the rest to work seamlessly.
It's the same story - people expect something to work like they want, without any training, any knowledge or knowledge about totally different software. They just need to learn.
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Most of the "typical users" I know would rather not have a computer than have to worry about configuring something (or even having to listen to an explanation of how they would do it). The comments by russofris and others are right on the money.Test signature
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Originally posted by Cyber Killer View PostBut you do so after a multiple week drivers license training, where you get taught the theory and later practice under a tutors eye. After a similar amount of computer science training you'd adjust your desktop workstation to your liking in similar "10 seconds" without checking any manuals & "just do your work".
It's the same story - people expect something to work like they want, without any training, any knowledge or knowledge about totally different software. They just need to learn.
I consider myself much more trained in computers than in cars, and yet I still appreciate good defaults / out of the box behavior in any OS.
As a matter of fact, my Cinamon, Win 7 and and Gnome desktops at home are not customized, and my work desktop is only slightly so (some pinned programs, some Favorites, task bar on the side of the screen and done).
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Originally posted by liam View PostThis is why fedora is making reliable and easy rollbacks a priority for the desktop. It's something that all distros should be working on. in addition there is the problem of in place updates (I'm not sure how dist-upgrade works but I'd assume it downloads everything and reboots you to a safe initrd to provide a safe upgrade environment but given your problems with X I suspect it used some shortcuts).
Back in my schooling days (during the Vista period) I was working as a temp in my campus's IT support dept to earn a little extra pocket money and the department had a problem with a Windows update that, for some reason, affected only staff and students using notebooks from a certain OEM (which shall remain anonymous) that had the school's software installed; other notebook makes and brands were not affected.
The dept wrote to OEM for help since it only affected their machines, but the OEM claimed that it was a Windows issue and they were unable to assist. So we had no choice but to ask Microsoft. In 4 days Microsoft sent down a specially written patch that solved the problem.
There was also another incident where an OEM loaded a bad Windows image into its notebooks for sale at the campus which results in the school's software failing to install correctly, and in the rare instances where it did successfully install, crashes frequently; this was not observed on other OEMs' notebooks. As usual, this OEM claimed that it was not its fault, so the school had to ask Microsoft for help. Within a week Microsoft sent the IT dept a specially written patch to fix the faulty image so that the school's software can be loaded into the OEM's notebooks.
You don't get this kind of special treatment with Linux; everything goes to the bugzilla where you have to wait for the developers to successfully recreate the issue so that it can be pushed with a general update package for all users. Which is not acceptable for an enterprise environment.
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Originally posted by Sonadow View PostIt's not just about having easier rollbacks; higher-level support is important.
Back in my schooling days (during the Vista period) I was working as a temp in my campus's IT support dept to earn a little extra pocket money and the department had a problem with a Windows update that, for some reason, affected only staff and students using notebooks from a certain OEM (which shall remain anonymous) that had the school's software installed; other notebook makes and brands were not affected.
The dept wrote to OEM for help since it only affected their machines, but the OEM claimed that it was a Windows issue and they were unable to assist. So we had no choice but to ask Microsoft. In 4 days Microsoft sent down a specially written patch that solved the problem.
There was also another incident where an OEM loaded a bad Windows image into its notebooks for sale at the campus which results in the school's software failing to install correctly, and in the rare instances where it did successfully install, crashes frequently; this was not observed on other OEMs' notebooks. As usual, this OEM claimed that it was not its fault, so the school had to ask Microsoft for help. Within a week Microsoft sent the IT dept a specially written patch to fix the faulty image so that the school's software can be loaded into the OEM's notebooks.
You don't get this kind of special treatment with Linux; everything goes to the bugzilla where you have to wait for the developers to successfully recreate the issue so that it can be pushed with a general update package for all users. Which is not acceptable for an enterprise environment.
But most medium size companies are paying Microsoft on the order of $50 per employee per year in software licenses, or more. If the same business used Ubuntu and paid Canonical a $50,000 annual support contract, Canonical engineers would fix their problems every bit as quickly as Microsoft engineers. Likewise if the company used Red Hat, or SUSE, or even Debian and one of the companies that support Debian, they would enjoy the same benefits.
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Originally posted by erendorn View PostMy driver license training was quite short on the "customizing your car" part (except, well, the seat and the mirrors)
I consider myself much more trained in computers than in cars, and yet I still appreciate good defaults / out of the box behavior in any OS.
As a matter of fact, my Cinamon, Win 7 and and Gnome desktops at home are not customized, and my work desktop is only slightly so (some pinned programs, some Favorites, task bar on the side of the screen and done).
Users dislike change. As I think I said earlier, the people angriest about the changes in Microsoft Windows 8 were the Microsoft fans. So you want to help adoption of Linux? Give yourself the biggest possible target audience and make your default desktop look like a prettier version of Windows 7. That's exactly what Cinnamon and RazorQt do, and I wouldn't be surprised if they become the two most popular Linux desktop environments in the next five years.
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