Linux Sucks - Page 4

how is it that gimp doesn't support .cr2? all I get is a black screen when I try to open them... I'm hoping it's a problem on my end (think it is) because I don't see how the gimp can hope to be a replacement to PS when it can't open canon's raw format.

Try http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/

thanks for the link. I tried to put that as one of gimp's plugins, but it still won't read my raw files...

Check out the list of supported cameras on this page:
http://www.cybercom.net/%7Edcoffin/dcraw/

Is yr camera there?

Another suggestion is to set your camera to save DNG or Adobe Raw images. These are more widely supported. My Canon does it.

Um, no it doesn't.

Doesn't what? My 20D Canon does support Adobe format AFAIK. But that may just be Adobe's color format, let me check ....

Hmm, no, just Separate color space selection - sRGB / Adobe RGB via menu option

My personal experience with Gimp is that there are a few things I can say about it.

My primary shortcoming with Gimp in my work is the lack of CMYK support. However as my work is now almost always digital(Print is for my own use really) and my visual work is secondary to my audio, Gimp works great for me. I have yet to run across something I needed to do with my digital files that I could do in Photoshop that I could not do with Gimp to be honest. The approach may be slightly different, but the tools have always been there.

Again for the sake of disclosure, my visual work is primarily as a secondary activity, to either support my portfolio, build web pages for others, or whatever the case may be(#D texturing obviously gets included though I am just starting in 3D). Audio is most certainly my primary field

Seablade

I agree, I can get the work I need to do done in gimp, but its's sooo hard sometimes. Just not having the ability to do dynamic layer effects in gimp is a huge pain. You can get around not having those features, but it requires much more work and less flexibility.

So digging up an old thread just for examples sake....

Just had to set up a dual boot on my workstation, choosing to install Windows on a seperate HD so I can always pull it out if I need to. At any rate go through the installation of XP Pro SP2. Installs great.

Runs? Not so great. In fact useless.

I can't connect to the internet through ieee1394, exact same setup I run on the exact same computer in linux works fine. Windows it says its connected, but can't ping the other computer(iMac acting as a server)

It also didn't even DETECT the network ports. So there is no way for me to get online to download drivers.

Thankfully I had just done a recent deep clean and ran across the driver disk, so it didn't take me long to find again. Never had used it before so I didn't think I would ever need it. Thankfully I am to overcautious.

Now was it difficult for me to fix as an A+ certified technician? Nope. Would it be difficult for me to fix as a fairly knowledgeable in windows teen or other consumer? Nope.

Is it any more difficult to do it in linux with the same amount of knowledge of the OS? Not at all.

It is just more confusing for most because they are not familiar with the OS.

In fact it is in my opinion easier to do it in linux, as most of the time you already have the drivers, if something is not detected you can modprobe the driver manually and set it up. But that is just opinion. Anyways yea for examples, I hate Windows. Vista thus far looks like a step up from their normal crap, but I am not convinced yet.

And I will also mentioned, without 3D acceleration on Linux, I can get a nice snappy desktop with absolutely no problem. In XP(Much less Vista) not so much. So if your 3D drivers aren't installed(Mine weren't) you are somewhat SOL. It just runs better and more lightweight in e17 on Linux than any new version of windows will ever hope to.

Seablade

The only real reason I switch entirely to Linux is because of Vista. Honestly, I had gotten pretty used to the 6 month instability reformat and most of the other winxp quirks. But when I read about all the great things coming in Vista: Trusted Computing, Advanced DRM, Open Formats (that aren't actually open), poor 64bit driver support (due to no OSS driver support), forced hardware upgrades, etc., I just had enough.

When I really started using linux (in 2005) there were so many frustrating issues. In the following 2 years the improvements have been better than I could have ever imagined. The linux desktop has really come a long way in the past few years. It also helps that so much of the new inovation is internet driven and not platform dependent.

I actually just read an article today that confirmed how atrocious the driver support is in Vista. It's quite ironic that MS' flagship operating system is going to have much worse hardware compatibility than a little hacker OS like linux.

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with your take on the DRM et al in Vista, and is why I certainly won't be switching to it. I meant from a security standpoint they seem to finally be making slightly better decisions, it only took three competing OSes(Linux,BSD,MacOSX, plus some I am sure i forgot about) to get them to wake up to it. All that being said BT, since I remember when you first switched to linux around here, as I am sure a few others might as well. How much of the improvements do you think made a difference, and how much of it was you learning the equivalent to your knowledge in windows system administration, in Linux system administration? Personally I would imagine a fair amount had to do with the latter, the former has certainly improved, don't get me wrong, but I think the latter makes a huge difference, and the fact once you KNOW how to do basic system administration in linux, nothing seem to difficult. Just my opinion mind you. Now on the flip side of things, Apple is slowly getting on my crap list for the exact same reasons you mentioned in Vista. More of their stuff is coming out with heavier and heavier DRM laden on it. Take the iPhone for example. Want a platform that just screams allow people to write stuff for it, that is it. But no it needs to be locked down. Makes me all the more happy for my Nokia 770, and soon to be 800. Seablade

By the way, I forgot to mention this elsewhere, ELive is getting realtime kernel support in the next version. At the moment it does not appear to be correctly implemented, but I intend to swing by the irc and talk to the dev about that and see if that might be fixed, from what i have been told that seems likely. But that may take the place of my Gentoo distro even, talk about easy to set up and run, and with realtime already enabled...

/me drools

Seablade

That definitely is part of it, but consider these improvements:

Gnome is much better since the Hoary/Breezy Days. It's faster and actually has some really useful features now. Samba is integrated and we actually have a working menu editor!

Getting multimedia working is a breeze (remember when getting smooth dvd playback was an epic adventure? Like no DMA in Hoary and Breezy)

Getting 3d accelerated video drivers for ATI and Nvidia cards working is a piece of cake. And Linux actually has apps that use 3d, and they're not screen savers! Remember trying to get 3d acceleration back in the Redhat 8 days?

Installers kick ass now. Almost every distro has a live installer and a text base installer for servers. Best of both worlds. The advent of the live disc has made such a hugely positive difference.

Debian based software repositories are much more mature today. No more dependency hell anymore. 2-3 years ago the repos weren't as polished as today.

64bit linux is actually well supported now. And we have 32bit libraries. I don't think we had them 2 years ago. You wanted 32bit support back then you had to chroot.

Support for common hardware has improved significantly. Creative labs stuff works better today, nforce works, tons of oss printer drivers have been developed.

App installers like automatix and easyubuntu have popped out of the community. Makes frustrating tasks no effort now.

This one is a biggie... Fonts actually look decent now. No longer does an app have fonts render in a couple different styles, all looking terrible.

There's a ton more things I can mention, but I think you get the point. In 2 1/2 years there's been some amazing progress.

Heh I suppose it looks a bit different for those of us old geezers(Despite me probably being younger than most around here that have been using linux for a long while. The progress made at any time is impressive, in general the open source community moves very fast, both a bonus and handicap at the same time because as you upgrade to the latest version, its out of date again so quick

But at any rate the amount of progress you mention, has been happening throughout the history of linux, you came in after the time of figuring out SCSI emulation for CD-Recording for example Its always impressive what they get done in mostly their spare time.

Seablade

Very easy to sum on this thread by translating a few phrases

Linux Sucks = I have used windows my whole life and I am not intuitive enough or smart enough to use Linux.

Windows is better = I cant figured out how to use linux and since I am the master of the universe. . .obviosly Linux is flawed.


Personally I prefer Windows. . . why you ask?
1. Because i am far to lazy to use Linux, my preference is to blindly hit the next buttons on applications knowing that it will work when the "Finish" button comes around.
2. I screw with stuff and tend to break stuff as a result. . . Windows is stupid proof and doesn't give you too many options to foobar yourself.
3. I like to use stuff when it comes out. .. i don't wanna wait till there is a Linux version and all the Windows emulators i found suck(or I am too much of a tard too figure them out).

Long story short:

Linux = Faster, more effiecient, and better security.
Windows = Cruise control for the stupid and lazy.

See my post above Not always the case with windows, in fact not as much as people would tend to believe to be honest. The primary difference nowadays in as far as things just working has absolutely nothing to do with the OS, Linux is the much better OS in that regards to be honest. It has to do with the manufacturers. Manufacturers provide drivers for Windows, they don't for linux. Without the drivers for a lot of hardware windows has nothing, and acts like a one legged gimp horse. Linux at least has many drivers already on it provided by the OS community that will get you going and able to do many things as it is. Moreso than Windows does in my opinion. Also windows is starting to require those drivers now, as I mentioned XP is a PAIN to work in without graphics drivers. Linux on the other hand I can not set up any accelerated graphics, have it default to standard VESA and still work in it fine. Even the X system doesn't need graphics drivers to be honest, my e17 desktop looks much nicer and runs much faster than windows, both without graphics drivers. Network drivers are a huge killer. Windows even detected my network over ieee1394, but it coulnd't use it. It said it was, it was set up correctly, manual IP setup, default gateway correct, DNS servers correct. Couldn't even ping the gateway. Network cards not even detected. Left me sol for getting anything else working. No Mac OS X is stupid proof, or at least much moreso than windows. Windows it is very easy for things to break, take for example how long the average windows XP install lasts unpatched on the internet, I think 2 minutes was the time I saw? Considering how long my laptop lasted when I tested that, I can believe it. As I mentioned before Vista is getting better, but I don't think it is there yet, and has to many other problems with it. Windows keep clicking next and eventually you will kill something. I would hate to see you try to do anything in the registry for example. This one is definitly a good point however, for the same reason above. Many manufacturers ignore Linux, and as such we don't get things when they first come out in the gaming world especially. That is why I am hoping virtualization picks up and matures. It will be interesting to watch. On the other hand I am hoping that Vendors start realising the benfits of working with open source instead of against, but somehow holding my breath for that seems like a bad idea. I am not even sure stupid and lazy is it, content may be a better description. I have started telling people since I switched to linux, sorry I am to stupid to fix their windows machines, though I usually end up doing it anyways. The reason being is it is much easier for me to fix problems in linux, than windows. I am pretty dang lazy, it was the first investment of time and energy I needed to learn it, but after that it has been nice and easy. Seablade

hello
Veering off topic here, but I'm also into audio recording etc, so I was just wondering what kind of programs you are using (on the linux platform) and have been using (on windows).
Maybe recording/editing/mixing on linux would work for me too...

thanks, later!

to pitch in on the stupid and lazy debate....i'd wanna actually say that LINUX is for the lazy.

observe...
TASK: download and install a (decent) web browser, email client, and chat software:

IN WINDOWS:
1. open IE
2. Go to www.getfirefox.com, click download, double click icon, next, next, next, finish.
3. Go to www.mozilla.com/thunderbird, click download, double click, next, next ,next, finish.
4. Go to http://gaim.sf.net, click on download, double click, next, next, next finish.
VERDICT: went to 3 websites, had to manually navigate to the downloads, had to run 3 individual installers.

IN LINUX (debian):
1. open terminal
2. "sudo apt-get install mozilla-firefox mozilla-thunderbird gaim" enter root password
VERDICT: no manual navigation for finding the installer files, just 1 command and let 'er rip.

what i am trying to say is that in windows it always pissed me off that when i needed an app, i needed to hit google to find a download site, download, then go through the bs installer. its just so much simpler for me to crack open terminal and give it a command to set up my stuff...let the computer worry about finding, downloading, and installing the latest version of the app, not me.

BT, nice posts! Your take on things parallels mine to a degree. I'm dying to go to Linux for good. On my desktops I always ran a dual boot setup, using M$ for some proggies. But since I bought this effing Vaio, Linux is a no-no (recognizes not much of the hardware, and nor does Windows, until you install all sorts of freaking Windows-only Sony drivers). I'll never buy a Sony lappy again for this reason. Even now I'm planning to build a desktop, my next computer, a silent machine, passively cooled (I hate fans and noise). I don't know if it can be done, but I know there are sites that are dedicated to building quiet PCs, so I'll get into that as soon as I've moved back to Australia (living in USA now).

Why a desktop? Well, desktops are cheaper (much), you can upgrade parts easily, and you can buy components that you know Linux likes and with which it runs well. Lappies not so much. Also I'm done gallavanting around the world, so I don't need the portability of a lappy anymore. I want a 19" flat panel, a keyboard with touchpad built-in (love touchpads, & get bad RSI/Carpal Tunnel with mice), silent box with 4G Ram, plain video card (not a gamer), dual core or better.

This Vista garbage is a marvellous opportunity for Linux. My guess is that the uptake of Vista will be no more than 5-15% in three years. This gives Linux a fantastic chance to iron out the niggling little shortcomings that put people off (I'm amazed that you say the menus can now be effectively edited, that the fonts are now smooth and properly anti-aliased, that drivers for ATI and nVidia are now easily installed, etc -- all stuff that didn't work properly for me just 2 years ago).

I now find myself running down the list of what I consider have-to-have apps in Windows. High on that list are things like Skype, webcams, Truecrypt and Photoshop, so I'm guessing I'll need a Virtual Machine setup (Wine?) to keep my old legal copy of XP chugging along. (BTW, Truecrypt is a wonderful app, free, makes your PC totally secure, runs under Linux from command line only last time I looked, love it).

Go Linux, GO!

Linux: Ardour Jack RoseGarden Audacity Rezound Hydrogen Windows:\ nAudacity Audition Mac: Ardour Jack ProTools Audacity Peak Live The only real thing holding back audio on linux at this point, is a good solution for running Windows or Mac VSTs on it. Both the emulation solutions are OK, but not great. And for the record, I think Windows XP just screwed up the firmware on my Audio Card(RME HDSP 9632), and my ieee1394 port has stopped working correctly as well now, though I am not certain that HAS firmware for windows to screw up. I KNEW I should never have put it on this computer. Yea for rebuilding from scratch JUST to be sure. Seablade Not having a good day.