Linked by David Adams on Tue 27th Jul 2010 07:35 UTC, submitted by sjvn
Some people hate the idea of adding proprietary software to their desktop Linux. For these people, there are Linux distributions such as gNewSense that use only free software. For the rest of us, who use distributions such as Fedora, openSUSE and Ubuntu, there are times we either want to, or feel forced to, add proprietary programs such as Adobe Flash or Skype or the ability to play proprietary audio and video formats such as MP3 or commercial DVDs to your Linux desktop. Here's how to do it.
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RE[4]: Shooting yourself in the foot.
by ssa2204 on Thu 29th Jul 2010 13:11
in reply to "RE[3]: Shooting yourself in the foot."
Member since:2006-04-22
The 1% figure for the desktop is a myth.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
Heading towards 5%.
Your right, it is a myth. More like .94%. Do you even bother to read these websites you link?
W3Schools' log-files....
Statistics Are Often Misleading
You cannot - as a web developer - rely only on statistics. Statistics can often be misleading.
Global averages may not always be relevant to your web site. Different sites attract different audiences. Some web sites attract professional developers using professional hardware, while other sites attract hobbyists using old low spec computers.
You cannot - as a web developer - rely only on statistics. Statistics can often be misleading.
Global averages may not always be relevant to your web site. Different sites attract different audiences. Some web sites attract professional developers using professional hardware, while other sites attract hobbyists using old low spec computers.
It is 30% of netbooks (worldwide), apparently, which is a figure that the Windows world desperately doesn't want anyone to know.
What was the marketshare when netbooks first appeared? What was the marketshare AFTER Windows was released on netbooks. Sorry, you fail once again.
Why on earth would I be interested in installing inferior, closed-source Adobe software instead?
Because your "tinker-toy OS and apps can not do what Acrobate can? Funny you say inferior, when that pretty much describes 99% of Desktop Linux apps. The only decent ones exist on Windows as well, so as NT_Jerkface points out, no reason to deal with the toy OS. But hey, enjoy your inferior desktop and apps, I am sure you get a lot done.
Edited 2010-07-29 13:12 UTC
RE[5]: Shooting yourself in the foot.
by lemur2 on Thu 29th Jul 2010 13:55
in reply to "RE[4]: Shooting yourself in the foot."
Member since:2007-02-17
"
The 1% figure for the desktop is a myth.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
Heading towards 5%.
The 1% figure for the desktop is a myth.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
Heading towards 5%.
Your right, it is a myth. More like .94%. Do you even bother to read these websites you link?
...
You cannot - as a web developer - rely only on statistics. Statistics can often be misleading. "
Exactly. The oft-quoted 1% statistic is one such highly misleading statistic ... it is in fact a barefaced lie. Linux has far, far greater penetration that that, even if you blinker your view to look at ONLY the desktop.
Global averages may not always be relevant to your web site. Different sites attract different audiences. Some web sites attract professional developers using professional hardware, while other sites attract hobbyists using old low spec computers.
You can't get much more "professional hardware" than these systems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Roadrunner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_%28computer%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebulae_%28computer%29
"It is 30% of netbooks (worldwide), apparently, which is a figure that the Windows world desperately doesn't want anyone to know.
What was the marketshare when netbooks first appeared? "
No, now.
What was the marketshare AFTER Windows was released on netbooks.
30%
Sorry, you fail once again.
How so?
" Why on earth would I be interested in installing inferior, closed-source Adobe software instead?
Because your "tinker-toy OS "
The world's most expensive, fastest machines use a tinker-toy OS?
http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/technology/39471-nearly-ever...
That would be news to the owners and designers of the world's most expensive, fastest, most reliable machines, I would think.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/16284/ten_years_of_ibm_mainframe_lin...
Perhaps you had better ring some of these people up and tell them that they are using a tinker-toy OS.
ROFLMAO.
and apps can not do what Acrobate can? Funny you say inferior, when that pretty much describes 99% of Desktop Linux apps. The only decent ones exist on Windows as well, so as NT_Jerkface points out, no reason to deal with the toy OS. But hey, enjoy your inferior desktop and apps, I am sure you get a lot done.
Pfft.
The world's biggest computational application, which is Google's services, runs on an estimated 1 million Linux servers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_platform#Server_hardware_and_so...
As for highly complex computing applications:
http://blogs.computerworld.com/15202/high_energy_linux_linux_the_la...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LHC_Computing_Grid
http://lcg.web.cern.ch/lcg/
This is not tinker-toy, by any stretch of the imagination.
The exact opposite, in fact. Linux is the OS of choice when computing gets serious.
Edited 2010-07-29 14:04 UTC
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
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Member since:
2007-02-17
The 1% figure for the desktop is a myth.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
Heading towards 5%.
It is 30% of netbooks (worldwide), apparently, which is a figure that the Windows world desperately doesn't want anyone to know.
In other spaces, such as mobiles, servers, embedded in devices and even supercomputers, Linux dominates.
FTA: "For these Linuxes, all you need to do to add Adobe Acrobat Reader to your desktop is just run the distribution's default application installation program and in a minute or two, you'll be viewing PDF files."
Pfft. On my Kubuntu 10.04 Linux install I can view PDF files out-of-the-box without installing anything, using a far better application than Adobe Acrobat Reader bloatware.
http://okular.kde.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okular
Portable Document Format (PDF) with the Poppler backend
PostScript with the libgs backend (Okular 0.6/KDE 4.0) / libspectre backend (Okular >= 0.7/KDE >= 4.1)
Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) with the libTIFF backend
Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) with the libCHM backend
DjVu with the DjVuLibre backend
Device independent file format (DVI)
XML Paper Specification (XPS)
OpenDocument format (ODF)
FictionBook
ComicBook
Plucker
EPUB
Mobipocket
Various image formats.
If I wasn't using KDE, perhaps I would be using Evince instead of Okular:
http://projects.gnome.org/evince/
Evince is not as capable as Okular, but it is serviceable enough.
I can't speak for GNOME, but my KDE4 Kubuntu 10.04 desktop default installation includes a "print to PDF" printer driver out of the box, and it includes an "export to PDF" toolbar button or menu command on OpenOffice.org Office suite applications and KOffice applications.
Why on earth would I be interested in installing inferior, closed-source Adobe software instead?