Posts by Martipar 58 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jun 2012
LibreOffice but MSOffice is a lot better for actual work. Mail Merge in Word takes little effort, doing it in LibreOffice requires convoluted steps that complicates an everyday task. I love LibreOffice but if I ran a business i'd be using MSOffice as it's cost is easily covered by the time it saves.
However they state it is exclusive with an Office 365 Subscription, I use LibreOffice and have done for so long that I can't actually recall the last time I had MS Office installed on any computer, it was almost certainly not a legal copy anyway. It was probably Office 2003.
MS Office is fine for work purposes but for casual home use I have no reason to use anything but LibreOffice.
1. It's free - So is Windows it's came with the PC I bought.
2. It's easy to use - Can you just turn the PC on and it's there? No you have to backup your data, install it, create a login then put your data back on your PC, once that's done you can use it.
3. You can use some of the applications you are used to - "Some" why not all? Well there are alternatives but you can learn the differences as you go along.
4. It's good for gaming. - "Excellent, I've just bought this latest game, will it work?" Not yet but maybe, you'll have to wait and some older games may need a bit of persuasion to work.
So I have to take my perfectly good PC, spend time backing up the data, install Linux, put my data back, install applications that may or may not do what the standard Windows apps do and if i'm lucky they'll be compiled binaries. I will have to hope that the game I want to buy works and I need to learn the differences as I go along?
This is the typical thought process of everyone I used to to tell about Linux, i used Linux, for me it was fine but for someone who want's to buy a PC, work on a PC and play on a PC Windows is the easy, free and most compatible option.
Until there is 'A' Linux, the one true distro, then there's little to no hope of Linux ever being adopted as a serious desktop OS. other distros can, and should, exist but The Linux Foundation needs to set some rules such as a standard desktop environment, standard package manager and a set of standard applications. Everything else will be an unofficial testing ground for potential alternatives.
So, as Apple would say, they are inserting it wrongly? I, and i'm sure many of us, have built computers over the years, our first one will have been, to put it bluntly thrown together with cables and cards plugged in without much care. A fire shouldn't occur because someone wasn't using a torque meter,a set square and a spirit level to ensure the PC was put together with with precision.
If a cable burns becasue it's not been put in just right that's not the users fault it's a problem with the design.
>but high end audio is so full of quackery, lies, and bullshit that I really can't stomach it.
Two recent Techmoan youtube videos featured a CD shaver and a CD de-magnetiser. Luckily Techmoan is above such things but gave them a fair attempt before giving them the derision they deserved, it's fun to watch someone who knows something is bollocks use a product as directed only to reinforce the view that it's bollocks.
I totally agree, I was contracted somewhere and one my way home I got lost and ended up in HR, I asked them if they had any permanent jobs available and they said "I don't know, check the website" I made a point of making sure it was definitely HR then made my way to the exit making a mental note to never apply for a job there if HR were so useless they weren't aware of any vacancies.
I had a minor epiphany recently, Linux is not a replacement for Windows but vendors definitely market it that way waht with a heavy focus on Wine and Libreoffice and MS Office compatibility. However what Linux really is is a MacOS replacement, if you have an old Mac and want a replacement but can't afford a new Mac but can afford a new Windows PC then Linux is ideal.
The games compatibility is largely the same because both MacOS and Linux are "serious" operating systems - all work and no play. You can create art, music, documents and spreadsheets on a Mac and Linux but if you play games and have fun with your computer then Windows is what you need.
Linux will keep your server up and running for days without incident but if you have Linux on your desktop too then there's not much you can do to take advantage of all that extra free time, Windows on a server will keep you entertained by having a problem that needs solving every so often and if you also have Windows on your desktop you can play a game while waiting for a fix to install.
The best of both worlds is to run Linux on the server and Windows on the desktop unless you're a lapsed Mac user then the experience will be much the same if you run it on the desktop as fun is not on the agenda.
You can also get iTunes Match if you want to have CDs you've ripped available across all your devices. (At $25US per year, it's one of the cheapest useful subscriptions out there.)
Sorry. $25pa to listen to CDs i've already bought is cheap? $0 is cheap, anything more is a double charging, rip off. I have never bought into the Apple multiverse, i've always preferred generic MP3 players, right now I use my Android phone and PowerAmp media player. I still buy CDs, I rip them using Winamp and have all the files on various computers and the Micro SD card in my phone, if i lost my phone it takes a short amount of time to transfer all my file across to my new Micro SD card and i'm away. There's no way i'd pay to listen to music I already own especially if the annual price is the same as the one off cost of a decent sized Micro SD card.
I agree in full. I have used Linux on and off for 20 years or so and every time I think "Linux should be able to do that." I either find it can if I use 3 different programs or it can't unless I install WINE and run the program I want.
IT managers also know this, they know they can just buy some hardware, some Microsoft OS and it'll just work and it'll be compatible with every other company as they likely use Microsoft software too. If Linux worked and worked well it would be adopted but there's so much fragmentation that outside of the server side of things it's not worth the hassle. In 2012 I decided to run Linux (and only Linux) on my PC, normally I dual booted, ran a live system or had it on my secondary PC never my main one. I decided to buy a PCI wireless card, on Windows that's easy, look at the specs and the price, work out which one offers the best VFM and buy the one I want. On Linux it's find one I like, then spend ages trawling through technical documents to find out what chipset it uses then finding out if that chipset is compatible with Linux and that's just one piece of hardware.
I still have trouble with one of my laptops showing a black screen if I want to run Linux live on it unless I switch to the safe graphics mode because Linux does not do what Windows does and show a reduced graphics mode automatically.
I have a laptop connected to my hi-fi, all it has to do is store my music. play them and show visualisations I have used Winamp for 20+ years because it's awesome, and the media library is perfect I spent hours, easily 5, trying out every Winamp alternative on Linux and other media players only to find the only one that had a library I liked Quod Libet - didn't support visualisations, i then spent more hours compiling a visualisation program from source because Linux devs are allergic to compiled binaries, listing where dependencies can be found and the make command can't list all the missing dependencies in one go rather it lists each one as it comes across them.
Needless to say the visitation program didn't work, it was at this pint about 4am and I took a deep breath, reached for my XP CD and wiped the drive and regretted spending 30 minutes transferring my music to the HDD.
I could go on but I won't for fear of writing a novel about the whole thing, I like the idea of Linux but often in practice it does not do what i want and all I want it to do is function properly. One day i'll find a reason to use it over Windows but for the last decade I've happily bought Windows because i'd rather buy Windows than have Linux for free.
Windows+R type control hit enter. I've been using that since XP, in fact I use the run box for a lot of stuff. Devmgmt.msc, compmgmt.msc, lusrmgr.msc, services.msc, regedit and more.
The UI changes are largely irrelevant to me though on Windows 10 I spend a few minutes removing the search bar, the tiles from the start menu, the weather app and a few other bits to get the desktop tidier. However I do the same on Linux, removing the desktop switcher, changing the look of it and tidying that up too.
I agree on everything apart for Inkscape. I have used Inkscape and Illustrator and while i'm certain there will be some quirky feature in Illustrator that cannot be be done in Inkscape for my casual needs Inkscape is a breeze to use. I do not doubt for a second there is a "Linux wall" in Inkscape but unlike in GIMP or in LibreOffice I haven't found it. I use Inkscape on Windows though because of the Linux wall in many other programs I use.
Bollocks, mail merge in LibreOffice is a right pain compared to MS Office, in fact most Linux alternative programs have some quirk or another.
I recently bought a cheap laptop (a HP 6710b running XP) for my hi-fi (it's got a 500GB HDD, a large screen and a disc drive, it was also a lot cheaper than a HDD based media player, hi-fi CD player and visualiser). I initially felt Linux would be ideal but the Winamp alternatives in Linux may support Winamp skins but I use the Winamp classic skin and have done since day one (about 1999 IIRC) the library feature is invaluable. One of the Winamp alternatives I used claimed to have a library but really just dumped all my files in the playlist.
The closest I found with a decent library setup was Quod Libet but it didn't support visualisations and so after a few hours of testing all sorts of media players I gave in and used XP and Winamp.
Gimp is another example "it can do what Photoshop can do" is trotted out occasionally but in reality it's a mess of convoluted processes that in Photoshop are easy and intuitive and I've not been trained in either so it's not a case of being "used to" Photoshop.
I use LibreOffice but If I did serious office work , like mail merging, i'd pay for MS Office though I mostly use it for spreadsheets. I'[ve often said that over 905 of the text documents i've created could've been done in WordPad and it's true, most could be done there. In fact it probably extends t most people.
The only 2 open source programs that I love are Scribus and Inkscape, I love using them and they feel much better to use than Microsoft Publisher and Gimp/Adobe Illustrator but as both are available for Windows these are not reason enough to use Linux for day to day desktop use.
I like Linux and for servers it's great but for the desktop it's a solution looking for a problem. I used to recommend Linux to people when I was younger but I got fed up with saying "Well it's not X, it's a bit like X but free." Because often people would come back to me and ask how they did something in their FOSS program i'd recommended and find out that it was either not there at all or available in a separate program and have to spend time learning about this obscure feature in a paid for program that is done in a couple of clicks but in a Linux program is a series of hoops that includes compiling from source.
What is it with the FOSS community being allergic to compiled binaries?
The only exist in the optional sidebar. I have a few distant friends who use Facebook and having the messenger in the sidebar is really useful. Opera GX has Twitch in the sidebar and i'm seriously considering giving GX a go just for that. I've used Opera for about 15 years now and having a built in adblocker and VPN is really quite useful, the VPN is about as basic as it gets but it works for most of what I need one for (watching region locked Youtube videos posted to Reddit mostly) I'm sure people who actually need a VPN would find it lacking in features though.
I think it's testament to how stable Windows is these days. between 1994 and 2001 Microsoft released NT4, 95, 98,, 2k, ME and XP. Which is an average of about 1 a year, without including the service packs and server operating systems. it's a lot of releases but there was a lot of instability, Windows 10 is by far the most stable OS I've used.
I used to like Linux but on this PC every time I updated the kernel I had to manually update the graphics drivers via the command line, it was frustrating as I didn't like having the choice of using an old kernel or having the PC boot to the desktop when I wanted it to.
The warez scene affected legit copies detrimentally though. I have a few old games that refuse to run because they detect I have a program for creating virtual drives installed. As if there isn't a legitimate reason for using a virtual drive. Luckily it's not many and it's on my XP gaming machine which is only used for LAN RTS gaming my mate when they visit.
I take it you've never tried to mail merge in LibreOffice? In MS Office you can just insert a CSV file, LIbreOffice requires you convert the CSV into a database then insert it and even then it doesn't work very well.
I use LibreOffice for spreadsheets, presentations and opening MS Office file formats but for serious work MS Office is better. I can't think of any 'advanced' feature that's easier in LibreOffice.
Technicall Xp 64-bit was actually a rebadged Server 2003 (it even only took Server 2003 updates and not XP ones) So really it goes 2000, XP, XP-64bit, Vista, 7, 8, 10. As the differences between XP and XP-64bit were as great if not greater than the difference between 2000 and XP.
The PS2 was shown upright http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/445933.stm as was the PS3 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4807858.stm and the PS4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-22852723/playstation-4-launch-gasps-as-price-unveiled I'm pretty sure this one can lie down to
I'm not saying they should or shouldn't but Microsoft do like their backward comparability though they have said that Windows 10 will be the last Windows: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/31/rising_and_ongoing_cost_of_windows/
Maybe we misinterpreted it and they are ditching it in favour of going back to their roots? I like the name Xenix, it's definitely cooler than Windows and Linux style performance in gaming is attractive.
I run Win 3.11 on this PC under DosBox (well technically that's a lie as i need to reinstall DosBox but it will) couldn't you, if they ever upgraded to 64-bit, install DosBox and in it's equivalent of Autoexec hava a line to boot windows and in the Autoexec.bat open the dictionary so they only have to click the DosBox icon (or a custom icon taken from the dictionary directory) and they get the dictionary loaded?
It's a bit of a janky solution but it'll get the job done and you get the nostalgia hit of installing Windows 3.11.
Have you tried turning on PAE in Windows? On this PC (which was running Win 7 32-bit which got upgrade to Win 10 32-bit during the free upgrade period) I followed the steps to enable it, it failed, i ran a 3rd party PAE fix program which only runs on certain builds and mine was already above that build, However there was one for my build available but i had to compile it from source (as a part-time Linux user i've done this sort of thing before) so I download Visual Studio community, download 4-5GB of libraries compile. Halt. Need other program which also needs compiling then compile PAE program. No go, it failed.
I gave in, went on Amazon and purchased Win10 64 bit OEM. On Linux you can install either the standared or PAE kernel from the package manager, why on Windows can't there be a nice big button with PAE On/Off on it? PAE is nice in theory but turning it on in Windows is a right PITA.
I spent a full day fiddling, tweaking, compiling, downloading and nothing worked - it was a complete waste of time and yet i know this processor supports PAE, it's run Linux PAE without issue and it shouldn't be a exerciser in hoop jumping to get it running on Windows.
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