Just built a money-is-too-tight-to-mention Ubuntu 10.4 LTS box. I used a single core Sempron 2.7GHz, Asus M4N68T-M motherboard, no brand box with 500W PSU, 500G hard drive and 4Gig ram. Installed nVidia drivers, flash, VLC and Super Tux Kart. Also got wobbly windows with Compiz. Going to get better PSU as first upgrade.
http://www.penguintutor.com/index.php
Here is a website mentioned in Linux Format Magazine. It has a LPI cert quiz plus other stuff.
I have installed a "game" under Wine and it is running OK. Installed "Search and Rescue" but can't play it without a joystick.
Here is a website mentioned in Linux Format Magazine. It has a LPI cert quiz plus other stuff.
I have installed a "game" under Wine and it is running OK. Installed "Search and Rescue" but can't play it without a joystick.
Play some old DOS games and demos on your LinuxBox in the Chrome browser!!!!!!
"In the Chrome address bar, type:
about
s
Find the section titled "Native Client"
Click "Enable" and restart Chrome."
from this link.
and the games are here.
ETA: that flag smiley thing is not meant to be there. I have just disabled smilies.
"In the Chrome address bar, type:
about
sFind the section titled "Native Client"
Click "Enable" and restart Chrome."
from this link.
and the games are here.
ETA: that flag smiley thing is not meant to be there. I have just disabled smilies.
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There seem to be two types of computer owners- people who want to get work done and people who like screwing with computers.
Type 1 use Macs.
Type 2 start with Windows, get bored, start experimenting with Ubuntu, then slide into a spiral of distro reinstalls and experiments and are basically never heard from again.
Yet they seem quite happy.
Type 1 use Macs.
Type 2 start with Windows, get bored, start experimenting with Ubuntu, then slide into a spiral of distro reinstalls and experiments and are basically never heard from again.
Yet they seem quite happy.
Xero
Thinker
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2010
- Messages
- 172
Yes, this is clearly why the majority of businesses use Windows. They obviously aren't interested in getting work done. : /
Spouting off your opinion as tho it were actual fact, priceless. And silly.
Xero
Thinker
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2010
- Messages
- 172
Nice, you make a silly statement, get called on it, so naturally call them a "fantatic". Need a shovel?
The Norseman
Meandering fecklessly
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2008
- Messages
- 8,449
There are actually 10 types of computer owners -- those who understand binary and those who do not.
(yes, I know it's an old joke.)
Stereotyping-It's funny cos it's true.
Apple bans satirical iPhone game Phone Story from its App Store
Apple users like shiny and censorship is one of the prices you have to pay for using their products. Choose freedom. Choose Linux.
Alan
Illuminator
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2009
- Messages
- 3,714
Talking about censorship, I heard of a petition for Google to remove a 'homophobic' app from the Android marketplace, but I'm not sure about whether they'll do it. I hope they don't. Although the alternate ways of getting apps makes it less of an issue.
http://www.allout.org/en/actions/androidapp
When there was a petition for Apple to remove something of this nature from their app store, I was saying that the app's presence on their app store reflects poorly on Apple because they censor things and exclude things on the basis of 'offensiveness', so letting it through looks like they support it. I said that if such an app was for Android, it wouldn't reflect poorly on Google...
The greater freedom with Android is one of the things it has over iOS. I hope they don't sacrifice that.
http://www.allout.org/en/actions/androidapp
When there was a petition for Apple to remove something of this nature from their app store, I was saying that the app's presence on their app store reflects poorly on Apple because they censor things and exclude things on the basis of 'offensiveness', so letting it through looks like they support it. I said that if such an app was for Android, it wouldn't reflect poorly on Google...
The greater freedom with Android is one of the things it has over iOS. I hope they don't sacrifice that.
Xero- apologies for "fanatic", but I do think you took the first post a bit more seriously than I intended.
Posters in this thread are a self-selected minority- people interested in OSii by definition. My "type 2".
In the wider world, most home PC owners simply don't care what OS their machine runs, so long as it lets them do what they want, which in the main, is play media of various kinds, store files , browse the web and send email.
Linux will do all that just fine, but so will Windows, which was probably preinstalled when they bought the machine. For that huge majority of home users, there is no incentive whatever to change to Linux- not even cost, because the PC already came with Windows.
Same holds in the majority of work situations-Companies buy what will do the job. The job is generally data shuffling and communication. Windows does that fine and comes cheap if you are bulk buying machines and licences. Retraining costs money. Why bulk install a free OS if you then have to retrain your workforce?
OK , go with Ubuntu. Easy install. Free office suite. Shiny GUI. What's not to like?
Nothing. But you already got all that when you bought the machine - and in a form your staff are all familiar with. And it will run that old Portuguese laser printer in the basement,the one nobody ever heard of, that hasn't needed a toner replacement since 1990 and we don't want to lose it. Sure , there might be a Linux driver, but...
There's one big exception to all this - and it tends to involve the sort of people posting in this thread.
People who work on rather than with computer systems have a different perspective, whether they do so for a living, or for fun. It would surprise the users of most Windows PCs in an office to learn that the network server they use daily is probably a Linux box. It won't surprise anyone in the IT department.
If you are building a computer at home, sure use Linux, why not? The price is right.
But until it comes as a regular free option with prebuilt machines it is doomed to remain a minority choice.
Most home users don't need Linux and are unlikely to make any major gains by using it. Yes, security is better, but anyone savvy enough to be using Linux is apt to have Windows security sewn up tightly as well. Just running Ubuntu doesn't guarantee a routine user is safe from malware- and if it becomes more popular, the risk will increase disproportionately, because the sort of person who targets a virus at a Unix derived system is apt to be far better informed than the average Micro$oft script kid.
My history with computers started with a Sinclair ZX 80, back in the late Pleistocene. My first 4 computers- a ZX80, ZX81,QL and an HP85 all predated DOS, never mind Windows. (DOS 5.1 remains my favourite OS. GUI's I can live without.) But who in his right mind would want to run DOS now, even were the hardware strictly compatible? Yes it's small and neat (An OS on a single 1.44MB floppy, remember?)- but that's hardly an advantage if you have 4GB of RAM and a 1TB hard disc. (Oh those old 640K limit days...bliss was it in that dawn, to be young).
So why do I use Linux if I'm so negative about it? Well, I'm not negative about it. I like it fine. I just don't see that it offers me any gains worth the trouble on most modern PCs. I use it because of the hardware limits of an Asus 901, which came with (a different distro of) Linux preloaded. Because I tried XP on it and it ran like a 2 legged dog. I like it fine, but it's not needed on my home PC and so I stick with Windows. (I did dual boot for a while, but found no gain from it. Ever tried UN-installing Ubuntu? It's a pain. And I suppose that's an illustration of what I meant by "fanatic"; there's loads of help installing Linux these days, but finding out how to uninstall it is harder. It doesn't occur to the advocates that anyone might want to.
And that's not a friendly attitude.
In any case, it seems to me all computer OS advocates are in danger of going the way of the stegosaurus. Smartphones are where the action is. The big seller of 2011, hardware wise, is the iPad, which doesn't use either Windows or Linux. It uses IOS - and the competition is all running Android. Smartphone operating systems. It's 1981 all over again- Motorola V Intel, DOS v Apple OS.
It really seems to me this is the next revolution on a par with the IBM / Microsoft deal that produced the IBM PC, killed every other competitor but Apple and set the DOS/Windows standard OS environment for the last thirty years.
Sometimes, looking back on this, I feel very old.
Posters in this thread are a self-selected minority- people interested in OSii by definition. My "type 2".
In the wider world, most home PC owners simply don't care what OS their machine runs, so long as it lets them do what they want, which in the main, is play media of various kinds, store files , browse the web and send email.
Linux will do all that just fine, but so will Windows, which was probably preinstalled when they bought the machine. For that huge majority of home users, there is no incentive whatever to change to Linux- not even cost, because the PC already came with Windows.
Same holds in the majority of work situations-Companies buy what will do the job. The job is generally data shuffling and communication. Windows does that fine and comes cheap if you are bulk buying machines and licences. Retraining costs money. Why bulk install a free OS if you then have to retrain your workforce?
OK , go with Ubuntu. Easy install. Free office suite. Shiny GUI. What's not to like?
Nothing. But you already got all that when you bought the machine - and in a form your staff are all familiar with. And it will run that old Portuguese laser printer in the basement,the one nobody ever heard of, that hasn't needed a toner replacement since 1990 and we don't want to lose it. Sure , there might be a Linux driver, but...
There's one big exception to all this - and it tends to involve the sort of people posting in this thread.
People who work on rather than with computer systems have a different perspective, whether they do so for a living, or for fun. It would surprise the users of most Windows PCs in an office to learn that the network server they use daily is probably a Linux box. It won't surprise anyone in the IT department.
If you are building a computer at home, sure use Linux, why not? The price is right.
But until it comes as a regular free option with prebuilt machines it is doomed to remain a minority choice.
Most home users don't need Linux and are unlikely to make any major gains by using it. Yes, security is better, but anyone savvy enough to be using Linux is apt to have Windows security sewn up tightly as well. Just running Ubuntu doesn't guarantee a routine user is safe from malware- and if it becomes more popular, the risk will increase disproportionately, because the sort of person who targets a virus at a Unix derived system is apt to be far better informed than the average Micro$oft script kid.
My history with computers started with a Sinclair ZX 80, back in the late Pleistocene. My first 4 computers- a ZX80, ZX81,QL and an HP85 all predated DOS, never mind Windows. (DOS 5.1 remains my favourite OS. GUI's I can live without.) But who in his right mind would want to run DOS now, even were the hardware strictly compatible? Yes it's small and neat (An OS on a single 1.44MB floppy, remember?)- but that's hardly an advantage if you have 4GB of RAM and a 1TB hard disc. (Oh those old 640K limit days...bliss was it in that dawn, to be young).
So why do I use Linux if I'm so negative about it? Well, I'm not negative about it. I like it fine. I just don't see that it offers me any gains worth the trouble on most modern PCs. I use it because of the hardware limits of an Asus 901, which came with (a different distro of) Linux preloaded. Because I tried XP on it and it ran like a 2 legged dog. I like it fine, but it's not needed on my home PC and so I stick with Windows. (I did dual boot for a while, but found no gain from it. Ever tried UN-installing Ubuntu? It's a pain. And I suppose that's an illustration of what I meant by "fanatic"; there's loads of help installing Linux these days, but finding out how to uninstall it is harder. It doesn't occur to the advocates that anyone might want to.
And that's not a friendly attitude.
In any case, it seems to me all computer OS advocates are in danger of going the way of the stegosaurus. Smartphones are where the action is. The big seller of 2011, hardware wise, is the iPad, which doesn't use either Windows or Linux. It uses IOS - and the competition is all running Android. Smartphone operating systems. It's 1981 all over again- Motorola V Intel, DOS v Apple OS.
It really seems to me this is the next revolution on a par with the IBM / Microsoft deal that produced the IBM PC, killed every other competitor but Apple and set the DOS/Windows standard OS environment for the last thirty years.
Sometimes, looking back on this, I feel very old.
Captain_Snort
Muse
I use ubuntu as I know it is stable and will work. I prefer linux over other OSs, I know how it works, know what to tweak. Spent years compiling my own kernels, mucking about in debian and LFS. Now I just want stuff to work. If I want to change stuff, I know I do not have to deal with a mystical flag driven registry but plain English config files. If I do not like something, I know there will be an alternative. I dislike Unity and Gnome 3, so I switched back to KDE that I left when KDE4 was released, it has nicely matured now. First thing I do with a new computer is install Ubuntu on it, even if windoze is on it already.
I have an Acer Iconia tab, and Android 3.2 really kicks the arse of the ipad, Software and hardware wise. Honeycomb is quite a different beast from the 1.x and 2.x smartphone android. Oh yes, it is Linux as well, nice to open a terminal and have the shell at your fingertips. Of course Linux can trace its history back to UNix, as can the BSD based iOS. has stuff really evolved to be all that different?
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BenBurch
Gatekeeper of The Left
All of which makes you one of my type 2 users, I suppose. I'm about a type 1.8,- interested, but scarcely informed. I'm on balance more familiar with Windows, because I have to be for work. I'm reasonably comfortable wading through the registry- never crashed a machine yet.
I confess to complete ignorance of phone systems. I truly don't understand why people are so enamoured of the things. After being berated by family members and friends for years, I finally bought the cheapest (distinctly non-smart) Sony-Ericsson Pay as you go phone I could find. I still rarely switch it on. With the drift towards tablets, I may start to pay attention, though the Asus901 is still going strong, Ubuntu netbook edition and all.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is dead at 56.
Not really a big fan of Apple or it's methods but found myself saddened by this news.
And a bit of a git for slagging off Apple at every opportunity.
Wow!
Not really a big fan of Apple or it's methods but found myself saddened by this news.
And a bit of a git for slagging off Apple at every opportunity.
Wow!
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