Instead of Windows Piracy - Use Linux!

[Marc]

Hi All,

I was reading another, rightly clanged, thread in this forum where one user was attempting to pirate Windows software for use against the license terms.

This got me thinking - why would anyone do that? While the moral debate over piracy (which I think is wrong personally) is not for this ofrum, we certainly are free to point out that good open source alternatives exist for almost all software now.

I know a lot of people here will reply with "but I need to rip off software for my work" well newsflash, if you are getting paid, so should the makers of the software be, and "I'm a poor student" does not really wash either, student editions of software cost very little.

BUT - crucially - ripping off Windows? Linux has grown and grown to the point that you can now, totally free of payment, install an OS which lets you do everything a Windows PC can (with the exception of playing certain games) for free, and some here will doubtless argue it does it better.

While the business case for "free" in the long run is extremely shaky, while it is here we should all take advantage, some excellent perfectly free programs on my PC include (dual boot with a licensed XP): -

Ubuntu Linux
OpenOffice.org
VLC Media Player
Paint.net
GIMP
AVG Free
Lavasoft Ad-Aware
Mozilla Firefox

ALL LEGAL AND FREE! So I ask you all for your opinion, surely it is better to be legal and support this excellent community, than to spend time and effort stealing software from the big corporations.

Fundamentally, if for some reason you feel an OS should be free, then Linux was built for you!

LINUX IS UNRELIABLE,

it is command line based with weird symbols.

i one tested it using a live cd.it was very clunky and slow.the interface had LARGE fonts which i could not reduce.
i could not install a AOL modem.so it was useless.

later it would not connect to internet using broadband either.

no intuitive messages.

pretty useless.

I think it for people who love command line and wasting all their time on the operating system instead of doing productive work in their basement.

it is really for idle hobbyists.

what i have done is used a operating system that is a merger of win98/00.

this works amazingly.

Once again you've demonstrated your ignorance. Plesae stop posting

Instead go and an read about everything that runs on Linux from the smalled netbook to the world's faster supercomputer.

Read up on much of the net run on Linux.

Read up on VOIP telephone systems.

Read up on big iron servers running.

Hell it wouldn't suprise me if the Trekbbs was running on a Linux server.

And there is no way in hell you could be running a combination of Windows 2000 and Windows 98. Their core design was totally different. Win2K was derived from Windows NT which had alwasy been pure 32bit. Windows 98 evolved from the 16bit line (Windows 3.x) and while predominately a 32bit operating system still had a large amount of 16bit code.

Because of it's NT origins Windows 2000 had a level of security that 98 could only dream about.

 

[noknowes]

Hi All,

I was reading another, rightly clanged, thread in this forum where one user was attempting to pirate Windows software for use against the license terms.

This got me thinking - why would anyone do that? While the moral debate over piracy (which I think is wrong personally) is not for this ofrum, we certainly are free to point out that good open source alternatives exist for almost all software now.

I know a lot of people here will reply with "but I need to rip off software for my work" well newsflash, if you are getting paid, so should the makers of the software be, and "I'm a poor student" does not really wash either, student editions of software cost very little.

BUT - crucially - ripping off Windows? Linux has grown and grown to the point that you can now, totally free of payment, install an OS which lets you do everything a Windows PC can (with the exception of playing certain games) for free, and some here will doubtless argue it does it better.

While the business case for "free" in the long run is extremely shaky, while it is here we should all take advantage, some excellent perfectly free programs on my PC include (dual boot with a licensed XP): -

Ubuntu Linux
OpenOffice.org
VLC Media Player
Paint.net
GIMP
AVG Free
Lavasoft Ad-Aware
Mozilla Firefox

ALL LEGAL AND FREE! So I ask you all for your opinion, surely it is better to be legal and support this excellent community, than to spend time and effort stealing software from the big corporations.

Fundamentally, if for some reason you feel an OS should be free, then Linux was built for you!

LINUX IS UNRELIABLE,

it is command line based with weird symbols.

i one tested it using a live cd.it was very clunky and slow.the interface had LARGE fonts which i could not reduce.
i could not install a AOL modem.so it was useless.

later it would not connect to internet using broadband either.

no intuitive messages.

pretty useless.

I think it for people who love command line and wasting all their time on the operating system instead of doing productive work in their basement.

it is really for idle hobbyists.

what i have done is used a operating system that is a merger of win98/00.

this works amazingly.

Once again you've demonstrated your ignorance. Plesae stop posting

Instead go and an read about everything that runs on Linux from the smalled netbook to the world's faster supercomputer.

Read up on much of the net run on Linux.

Read up on VOIP telephone systems.

Read up on big iron servers running.

Hell it wouldn't suprise me if the Trekbbs was running on a Linux server.

And there is no way in hell you could be running a combination of Windows 2000 and Windows 98. Their core design was totally different. Win2K was derived from Windows NT which had alwasy been pure 32bit. Windows 98 evolved from the 16bit line (Windows 3.x) and while predominately a 32bit operating system still had a large amount of 16bit code.

Because of it's NT origins Windows 2000 had a level of security that 98 could only dream about.

I AM NOT DISPUTING LINUX BASED SERVERS,ETC AS YOU SAY.

I am talking about desktops and real people like everyday joe who need to work and get something accomplished without mastering an infinite number of linux distros.

Bill Gates invented windows so AVERAGE JOE people could do work with it.

i have never seen an office with linux based desk tops in it.

my os was designed by me installing win 98 then installing win2000 on top of it.

i found most of my 1232 win98 programs still worked on it!

 

[Smiley]

^
You're running Windows 2000, then. When you upgraded, Window 98 was essentially overwritten. The programs still work because of Microsoft's standardization and backward-compatibility. Most programs work on multiple versions of Windows, typically at least three of them.

I agree that Linux is currently not as user-friendly as Windows, but it has usefulness to some user groups now, and it has potential to be better in the future.

 

[Marc]

LINUX IS UNRELIABLE,

it is command line based with weird symbols.

i one tested it using a live cd.it was very clunky and slow.the interface had LARGE fonts which i could not reduce.
i could not install a AOL modem.so it was useless.

later it would not connect to internet using broadband either.

no intuitive messages.

pretty useless.

I think it for people who love command line and wasting all their time on the operating system instead of doing productive work in their basement.

it is really for idle hobbyists.

what i have done is used a operating system that is a merger of win98/00.

this works amazingly.

Once again you've demonstrated your ignorance. Plesae stop posting

Instead go and an read about everything that runs on Linux from the smalled netbook to the world's faster supercomputer.

Read up on much of the net run on Linux.

Read up on VOIP telephone systems.

Read up on big iron servers running.

Hell it wouldn't suprise me if the Trekbbs was running on a Linux server.

And there is no way in hell you could be running a combination of Windows 2000 and Windows 98. Their core design was totally different. Win2K was derived from Windows NT which had alwasy been pure 32bit. Windows 98 evolved from the 16bit line (Windows 3.x) and while predominately a 32bit operating system still had a large amount of 16bit code.

Because of it's NT origins Windows 2000 had a level of security that 98 could only dream about.

I AM NOT DISPUTING LINUX BASED SERVERS,ETC AS YOU SAY.

I am talking about desktops and real people like everyday joe who need to work and get something accomplished without mastering an infinite number of linux distros.

Bill Gates invented windows so AVERAGE JOE people could do work with it.

i have never seen an office with linux based desk tops in it.

my os was designed by me installing win 98 then installing win2000 on top of it.

i found most of my 1232 win98 programs still worked on it!

No Bill Gates did not invent Windows.

The original Windows concept was created by Xerox at their Palo Alto Research Centre (Xerox PARC) around 1972. Steve Jobs was exposed to the idea of a GUI during a tour in the 1970s.

In 1982/3 Apple released the Lisa - the first GUI based system available for commerical sale.

The LISA flopped due to Job's mindset but it gave Birth to the Apple MacIntosh which came out in 1984.

At the time of LISA Microsoft had no Windows system. Version 1 of windows was developed and completed in 1985 but severly limited. Version 2 was out in 1987. It wasn't until the 80386 systems beceme prevelent in the late 1980s/early 90s that we saw Windows begin to take off both with the release of more Windows based apps and the advent of Windows 3.0 in 1990

Microsoft then introduced network in what became Windows for Workgroups.

You line about having never seen and office desktop with Linux on reeks of ignorance. Perhaps I shold say I've never seen you there for you do not exist.

A trust me you have no fucking idea how to design an operating system.

Operating systems to do not, I repeat do not merge - they replace.

Having worked in IT since 1989 I've done my fair share of upgrades on both Desktops and Servers so unlike you, I think I know what I'm talking about.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

^^ You are absolutely right. However, it does feel like you're talking to a door -- I doubt noknowes will pick up any information.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

Now, to give credit---the math guy writes great code. Really great code. He can eek out every little scrap of performance from his C code, and it's generally light on errors. However, the interface has all the problems of C---lack of type safety, need for manual cleanup of resources, etc. Plus I find it next to unreadable. Even when I know what it's supposed to be doing I have difficulty following it sometimes. Good luck to anyone trying to maintain it after him! (That's less of a problem in research than in production code, of course.)

My code---which has evolved in the direction of high-level, STL- and Boost-based C++ lately---I try to keep much more obvious. I'm not always successful; and if you don't know the nuances of STL, the fact that I wrote a program in 3 lines rather than 30 might not make its function more obvious. But it runs nearly as fast when optimized, and segfaults are far less common than they once were for me as a result.

That's so recognizable, it's uncanny.

 

[USS KG5]

it is really for idle hobbyists.

Your whole post is a bit odd - but surely this is hardly fair on the community, especially your fellow posters?

Apart from anything else the Open Source community as a whole has produced products like OpenOffice which I sam actually planning to use to help the business I work for save money!

Hardly an idle waste!

 

[Plecostomus]

Bill Gates invented windows

This cracks me up. Bill Gates invented NOTHING. Bill Gates at best positioned Microsoft just right back in the day. In fact wasn't Microsoft DOS purchased from someone else? Or am I thinking of another progra?

I LOVE how people blame him for all the little faults and quirks and problems with Microsoft products as if he had a hand in any of the actual coding.

Well back to work at my office on my Linux desktop.

 

[TheGodBen]

LINUX IS UNRELIABLE,

it is command line based with weird symbols.

i one tested it using a live cd.it was very clunky and slow.the interface had LARGE fonts which i could not reduce.
i could not install a AOL modem.so it was useless.

later it would not connect to internet using broadband either.

no intuitive messages.

pretty useless.

Sorry, but none of those things indicate that Linux is unreliable, all of the things point to user error if you ask me.

1) The command line interface has existed since before GUIs came along, it is not unreliable.

2) "Weird" symbols are not an indication of unreliability, they're just different from what you're used to.

3) Were you running the OS directly from the CD? If so then you shouldn't be surprised that it was slow, the OS is designed to run from your HDD, and on my PCs Ubuntu runs faster than Windows.

4) Depending on which GUI your Linux distro was running you should be able to change the fonts to your requirements, you not knowing how to do that is not an indication of unreliability.

5) Some AOL modems can be a nightmare to install even on a Windows OS and sometimes they tie in the connection phase with their browser. I would suggest that that problem had more to do with AOL's crappy software and drivers rather than Linux itself.

6) The loss of broadband connection is potentially a reliability issue, but much like my problem with the sound-card it is just as likely to be a driver problem with the hardware manufacturer.

7) No intuitive messages is not an indication of unreliability, even the simplest of linux distros requires the user to know what they are doing. It is not designed on the same principles that it should be user-friendly as Windows and OSX are, it is designed so that you can easily get stuff done when you know how things work.

For example, in XP Microsoft changed the control panel so that it is easier to navigate if you don't know exactly what you are looking for. I don't like that because I know my way around the basic control panel and I don't want to have to click my way through three menus to open the application I want when I can just do it in one. That's why in XP, Vista and 7 I have it set to show all control panel items. It seems to me that Linux is like that; if you know what you are doing it is faster and more powerful than Windows, if you don't know what you are doing you're likely to get confused.

That's irregardless anyway, it is not a reliability issue.


I don't think that Linux is for everybody, I admire it and enjoy using it from time to time, but I'm too used to Windows and that's where all my software works anyway. Linux will never take off with the average computer user, and it certainly wont take off with the stupid computer users, but it is not because Linux is unreliable it is purely because linux is not designed for them. Nor should it be.

what i have done is used a operating system that is a merger of win98/00.

this works amazingly.

Windows ME?!!

 

[USS KG5]

This cracks me up. Bill Gates invented NOTHING. Bill Gates at best positioned Microsoft just right back in the day. In fact wasn't Microsoft DOS purchased from someone else? Or am I thinking of another progra?

I believe it was partly based on an OS called QUDOS that was bought, I think.

I LOVE how people blame him for all the little faults and quirks and problems with Microsoft products as if he had a hand in any of the actual coding.

I think in the early days Bill did do a fair bit of coding.

 

[Plecostomus]

I think in the early days Bill did do a fair bit of coding.

Maybe so but now he's many many steps removed from the actual coding and testing phases, as are the heads of nearly all major billion-dollar operations.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

This cracks me up. Bill Gates invented NOTHING. Bill Gates at best positioned Microsoft just right back in the day. In fact wasn't Microsoft DOS purchased from someone else? Or am I thinking of another progra?

I believe it was partly based on an OS called QUDOS that was bought, I think.

I LOVE how people blame him for all the little faults and quirks and problems with Microsoft products as if he had a hand in any of the actual coding.

I think in the early days Bill did do a fair bit of coding.

Yes, but current-day Windows has as much in common with Windows 2.0 as oranges have to toads.

 

[Marc]

This cracks me up. Bill Gates invented NOTHING. Bill Gates at best positioned Microsoft just right back in the day. In fact wasn't Microsoft DOS purchased from someone else? Or am I thinking of another progra?

I believe it was partly based on an OS called QUDOS that was bought, I think.

I LOVE how people blame him for all the little faults and quirks and problems with Microsoft products as if he had a hand in any of the actual coding.

I think in the early days Bill did do a fair bit of coding.

yes it was a program call QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System). Cost Gates at total of $75,000.

and yes Gates was a programmer in his early days. There's no doubt is he's smart cooking (in the brains sense as well as business sense).

IBM went looking for a operating system for their new computer and first approached Digital Research but that didn't work out (the story goes IBM had pretty viscious NDA combined with Gary Kildall not being there and never knew they came calling).

Gates bought QDOS, relelablled and did a successful sales job to IBM and the rest is history.

 

[TheGodBen]

And Gates convinced IBM that MS should be allowed to keep the rights to MS-DOS and IBM agreed because they didn't think there was any money in software. Probably one of the worst business decisions any company ever made, unless you're Gates in which case it was the business decision that made you the richest man in the world for a time.

 

[USS KG5]

This cracks me up. Bill Gates invented NOTHING. Bill Gates at best positioned Microsoft just right back in the day. In fact wasn't Microsoft DOS purchased from someone else? Or am I thinking of another progra?

I believe it was partly based on an OS called QUDOS that was bought, I think.

I LOVE how people blame him for all the little faults and quirks and problems with Microsoft products as if he had a hand in any of the actual coding.

I think in the early days Bill did do a fair bit of coding.

Yes, but current-day Windows has as much in common with Windows 2.0 as oranges have to toads.

What has that got to do with anything I said? The discussion was about where Windows originally came from not where it is right now.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

My bad; I read it wrong.

 

[USS KG5]

My bad; I read it wrong.

No prob dude.

 

[Shurik]

I use Linux (the latest Ubuntu) only for programming and running simulations. I write all the simulations I need for my research on C since I need very long runs and C+Linux combination is the only sane option ... Other than that, I can't find any use for Linux, especially when I can download a perfectly legal copy on Windows from MSDNAA. I absolutely despise Open Office, don't have enough patience to write in LyX/LaTEX and don't care for all the Linux "versions" of familiar Windows progs. And don't forget the games ...

 

[C. Cole-Chakotay]

ReactOS looks interesting to me. I'm planning on watching to see how it comes along.

 

[Plecostomus]

I use Linux (the latest Ubuntu) only for programming and running simulations. I write all the simulations I need for my research on C since I need very long runs and C+Linux combination is the only sane option ... Other than that, I can't find any use for Linux, especially when I can download a perfectly legal copy on Windows from MSDNAA. I absolutely despise Open Office, don't have enough patience to write in LyX/LaTEX and don't care for all the Linux "versions" of familiar Windows progs. And don't forget the games ...

What's wrong with Open Office? Just curious, i've been using it for four years now and don't understand the hate some folks assign to it.