[ceenda]

[ EDIT - wow, I can't believe I wrote something so boring. I must've been more bored at work than usual but I can't figure out how you delete posts on this version of the forum... ah well... hmn... nice weather... new Bond movie is good... ]

[jr]

i hear the bond movie is good too, but i won't watch it, i haven't seen any of the brosnan bond films. to me he's still remington steele.
also i must disagree about the weather. i don't know what the weather is like in scotland, but in new york, we just got hit with 8 inches of pure evil (snow, you sicko! )
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[Vesuvius]

viable as what?
as an OS? an MS whitepaper recently stated that UNIX was more reliable for them as a server platform than NT.
as a office solution? try openoffice.
for art?there are some pretty good ones out there, but I don't know if they're really competetive yet.

[DrunkenMoNk]

Open source as an operating system in my eyes is still for only developers/servers. The common user still has to jump through too many hoops and The Gimp can't even begin to compete against Photoshop thus killing any reason for a designer or artist to switch over.

In software in general, some open source projects compair fairly to their proprietary counterparts or are even superior in certain instances. Mozilla/Phoenix are shaping up into browsers that can compete with IE (Have been using Phoenix as my primary browser since 0.2), pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing and a whole slew of other options give it a slight edge. Of course I wont say it's any less buggy, but the applications speed is pretty comparable and they do render pages just as fast. (http://www.mozilla.org)

I also use Open Office, which is a pretty sweet app. I'm sorry but I still can't justify spending $500 for the abillity to have a glorified notepad and spreadsheet application. Seeing Open Office out there, wiith it's ability to read most Word DOC's and seeing it having all the features I need plus being free really killed any urge I had at purchasing Office ever again.

[Impaler]

I think Linux would be great for computers in public schools.
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QED, sort of.

[antx]

First, on the gimp: I think it�s problem is mainly the interface. It is made from developers for developers. Not for artists. The functions are there (that�s what matters to developers) but the way they are implemented is useless for real use (that�s what developers don�t see cos they don�t use it them self). Photoshop (still lagging a lot also) is much better in that way.
Those OS developers need to get motivated to work on the interface as well rather than just on the features.

On the "viable": Yes, I think so. Cos what would stop a project? Actually only the loss of interest on the developers side. But then since it�s open source, some other developer would pick it up. Just like this.
The only reason that this would not happen would be, that there is no interest at all on this project which then again means that no one would miss it if it�s gone.
On the commercial side it�s much more tricky (licenses, money, copyright, patents...).

On the weather: no snow over here in Berlin, but damn cold...

[DrunkenMoNk]

I can't disagree enough about The Gimp's main problem being it's interface.

The interface regarding most (if not all) Open Source applications are horrid and at best re-treds of windows which in and of itself isn't anything to be proud of in regards of UI. So that's merely a redundant statement.

When using photoshop professionally things like color seperation and management are paramount. The Gimp has almost no claim in these areas thus making it useless in high end print situations. Not to mention that Photoshop is the standard that you will have to deal with regardless, to me this is where The Gimp loses out where even Open Office stands a chance in it's own category.

When dealing with pre-press you have no choice, you give the printer what they can accept... you can't say "How about you setup a linux box and The Gimp so you can process my files.". Most if not all require photoshop/quark/illustrator. Apparently Adobe Indesign is making some in-roads but those are the big three.

If your work doesn't require advanced color management or color seperation then sure, I suppose The Gimp is an adequate replacement. The major difference is that the majority of professional uses for Photoshop simply don't appear in applications such as The Gimp, and it may not even be a plausible possibility due to the monopoly Adobe has over the market (no matter how much I hope it could be).

[Impaler]

I'd like to see something new in a user interface. I mean, every platform has basically the same concept (Window, Menu, Close Button).

I think the big problem with computer technology is that almost all of the efforts are being focused on horizontal integration, rather than vertical innvoation. In short, we'd rather see our Pentium 4 talk with our toaster rather than have it show us something truly new and inventive. I mean, why can't we have the 3D operating system that we saw in Jurassic Park? The technology is here.

Why does my 2,500 dollar computer take longer to start than my NES?

Why is it that the major difference in the UI between XP and 95 is a rounder start button?

Why is it that programming languages are ridiculously difficult to master? Wouldn't it make more sense for both programmers and the everyman to turn C++ into a "natural language"?
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QED, sort of.

[DrunkenMoNk]

The problems of course with developing UI's are:
a) The company known for developing a friendly UI has only 4% of the worldwide market share.
b) UI isn't considered a measuring tool by the public, due to how poorly Apple does in the market.

It's amazing, with the premise of open source you'd assume it would be the easiest platform to innovate the UI, yet the developers spend more time duplicating the windows look and feel then creating something new.

About programming languages, I'd simply say that their not as difficult to master as you put. None of them should take longer than say mastering Photoshop for instance, and once you learn C (or some comparable language) learning any other is only a matter of translating syntax.

The reason they probably don't try to make it any simpler is because it would probably take more time to compile and run, thus adding more overhead. Languages like visual basic or real basic try to make programming fairly easy but at the cost of performance which is the usual trade off. Which would in effect create more of a problem with your other issue dealing with why your computer takes longer to start than your NES. Making the code simpler leads to a degradation in performance which would then cause your computer to run even slower.

I'm still trying to understand your arguement about how your computer runs slower than your nintendo. I'm quite sure, if you simply run dos or bash and nothing else you'll be flying on that $2,500 machine. If you want to load a complicated operating system with features up the wazoo expecting it to load that as fast as say a nintendo loads something that's 0.0000000001% as complicated is a little ridiculous.

Operating systems deal with multitasking, memory management and so on and so fourth. Video game systems have 1 task to deal with and their done. It's like asking why your discman starts up faster than you $2,500 computer. Sure your discman can turn on and start playing a song way faster than a computer can do the same, but on the other hand your discman can't even approach the capability of your computer and that's the trade off now isn't it?

Then again who knows, everytime you open up a tech magazine you'll always find a story about quantum computing being around the corner, so maybe even that will no longer be an issue.

[Drunken Monkey]

[ceenda]

Wow, I expected this topic to vanish, so I'll outline a little bit about what I meant when I posted this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2540179.stm

I currently have a dual boot system with WinXP and Linux. Now, I downloaded Linux for free, I can edit the latest Word files for free. I can edit Excel spreadsheets for free. I can effectively work from home for free. I can have a server running initially for free (not including bandwith costs). I can have a PHP website running for free. All the apps that come with Windows appear in better implementations with more options in Linux. Even the most basic command options like PING work better, with the Windows version giving up after 4 pings which is pretty useless.

In a recent topic, AliasMoze pointed out, quite rightly, that software is intellectual property. Like written prose and musical notation, it is a creative process.

Imagine if the full source code to Adobe Photoshop was available. I'm sure that some programmers out there would have it running about 20% faster. Either that, or they'd ruin it.

Oh, and the main problem with GIMP is not the program itself. It's the complete lack of Wacom drivers. I've given up trying to get my wacom to work with pressure sensitivity in Linux. Hopefully the next kernel release will have better integrated USB support. I might try recompiling the kernel, but, meh.

[Giant Hamster]

the only freeware program that truely rocks the compotition in every way, manner, and fashion: Buzz Tracker

Beware other music software...I have been testing it's new fruits and they're frightningly amazing.

[elam]

Speaking of 3d desktops, have you ever seen this?
I wouldn't exactly consider this a 3d desktop, but it's still kinda cool.

A true 3d desktop is probably years away.

One thing I like about Linux is the wealth of different windowing environments, such as enlightenment.
It's 2d, but it sports cool little productive shortcuts.

Speaking of programming, I didn't know dick a year ago, but I started doing some web programming with Perl.
If your at all interested in learning a language, I would suggest trying Perl.
It's fairly easy to learn and tremendously useful, with modules for just about anything imaginable.

I have high hopes for blender. A lot of smart peeps are going to be working on it.

You know, pretty much all the 3d studios and related software are going to Linux, with the exception of Adobe, who I hear is being threatened by Microsoft if they port their software.

Now, if only Hash would port Animation Master!

[Pat]

3D desktops are already here. OSX Jaguar (10.2 and above) are using Quartz Extreme to render the desktop. All the windows, text and displays are treated as texture-mapped graphical elements so that all video calls can be offloaded to a graphics card. Basically this frees the main cpu from having to render any windows or fancy effects so it can focus on processing other data. Additionally, since most graphics cards are especially adept at this type of acceleration the resulting speed improvement can be substantial. Under OSX this requires a minimum of 32 megs on your graphics card. Microsoft is working on implementing a similar display strategy in the new Windows.

In it's current implementation you can't really rotate or navigate the desktop in 3D space but that's probably just around the corner, err... so to speak

-Pat