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Simon Roberts wrote:
> OK, I've been wanting to answer this question for ages, but there's
<snip>
> 1) Hardware issues. If you just walk into a store and ask for a
> machine that will be good to go with Linux, they'll look at you
> blankly. It's a major effort to check the details yourself. Most off
In a long experience in support as well as development this is not
*just* a linux issue, you get as much and sometime more grief with M$
systems with manufacturers being lazy or incompetent in supplying
drivers that will work with various OS versions. The finger should be
mostly pointed at the hardware people in this case...
>
> 2) Photography related. I use Windows to run Photoshop CS2 in a color
> managed workflow. In this, Linux doesn't cut it for two reasons:
>
<snip>
> GIMP is only 8 bit. That's fire in theory, but when you mess with
> stuff much, you quickly run into posterization (I see this even in
> some professional's work and while those in question don't seem to
> care, I personally hate it).
>
Gimp 8 bit only !?! clarify context and format, seems a very broad and
sweeping generalisation .... I find gimp a bit counter intuitive on
occasion but I also have the same problem with photoshop. To be honest I
only worked with the driver and graphic library side in the (very
distant) past, and rarely do things with actual images...
> 3) Irritations with web plugins. Idiots out there keep writing stuff
> that's windows only, and there always seems to be trouble trying to
> get the latest Flash player. When it's available, it's tricky to
> install.
>
Personally, must remember to kill things like flash player, one of my
pet hates is going to website and finding that need to load the latest
flash player to even get in..., I usually want info, not pretty moving
pictures... </rant>
> 4) Palm pilot-: Several versions of palm device just don't sync,
> needless to say, this includes some that matter to me. I don't know
> how to sync my palm and evolution-etc. with web calendars like google
> or yahoo. That's important to me. I gave up using my palm pilot
> because of this. Consequently, I'm appallingly badly organized and
> regularly double book myself and miss meetings.
>
PDA synchronisation is a complex area, Palm originally went the
direction that built their own environment within Windows and it worked
well (pity PalmOS was so limited).
Symbian/PSION went the route of integrating with the Windows desktop and
often it was more than a bit unreliable.
Both approaches are proprietorial, and Linux implementations were
largely reverse engineered (at least in the Symbian/PSION world).
A more modern route is SyncML and things have improved in the Linux
world in part because the specification is open. I would take a good
look at egroupware, the project management side looks like it has a lot
of potential and the basic SyncML support is there. An alternative for
synchronisation is funambol. To be honest I would not want to put my
personal schedule on third party supplier...
Calender synchronisation is still a problem area on all platforms. The
OMA SyncML specification is strong on the communication protocol but
there are aspects of the Server and Client responsibilities that are not
closely specified and are down the application developer.
> 5) Video; I have failed repeatedly to build a system that plays all
> reasonable kinds of video. Mostly this seems to be a deliberate
> policy on bill gates' part (and the lawyers and the evil patent
> system, of course). I've reached the point where I can do most file
> types with the exception of AVI with the type 9 codec.
>
I first saw video on a PC in about 1990, at the time I thought it looked
pretty exciting, but now I rather wonder about its value.
> 6) Strange inconsistencies ("That can't happen"):
>
Oh come on ! Again from past support experience this is not *just* a
linux issue... it surprising how inventive how people are at crocking
their PC no matter the platform... at least with Linux one has the
chance of finding out what happened and fix it without having to rebuild
the kit and caboodle from scratch!!!
M$ windows will work when you turn it on but take a look at link below
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/01/how_green_and_putrefying/
<snip>
> Updates that break things, the various methods that I've found my
Think M$ patch Tuesday here.... :-)
<snip>
- --
==============================================================================
I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my
telephone.
My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.
Bjarne Stroustrup
==============================================================================
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