Warez free and loving it!

[drag]

Originally posted by: lowtech

Slackware is the BOMB when it comes to a learning OS.

It is kept as simple as possible. No portage to figure out, no apt-get to trip over, no frills. And a much nicer (IMO) init scripts.

Slack is nice & there is nothing wrong with apt-get. You only have to remember apt-get update, upgrade & install. And, then there are such thing as dselect, aptitude & synaptic.

I love apt-get. It just gets in the way when your stumbling around wrecking your system as a newbie. It hides stuff from you, not because it's bad, but just because it's easy to use.

I figure that if you don't have to reinstall 2 or 3 times a week for the first couple months as a Linux user, you just aren't trying hard enough.

That's why I hesitate at recommending Gentoo. Installs just take to long. If your going to keep the OS for the long term then it isn't a big deal, though.

For instance if I was teaching a class in basic Linux administration, I would use Slackware over Debian, since it's simple(r).

Eventually I would show the various package tools and how to use them etc etc.

just my 2 cents.

 

[lowtech1]

I love apt-get. It just gets in the way when your stumbling around wrecking your system as a newbie.

A newbie that poke around will wreck anything be it Windows, Linux or car.

It hides stuff from you, not because it's bad, but just because it's easy to use.

There are such thing as the -u & -s switch that unhide & simulate the install.

I figure that if you don't have to reinstall 2 or 3 times a week for the first couple months as a Linux user, you just aren't trying hard enough.

I'm sure that LFS, Vector, and Gentoo will keep a newbie busy for the first few months.

That's why I hesitate at recommending Gentoo. Installs just take to long. If your going to keep the OS for the long term then it isn't a big deal, though.

There is such thing as livecd for Gentoo.

For instance if I was teaching a class in basic Linux administration, I would use Slackware over Debian, since it's simple(r).

IMHO, I would go with Debian for this purpose because the focuse is on administration not install....if you want to go the hardcore root...again LFS or Sorcerer would do fine.

 

[imported_Phil]

Damnit, looks like my server has a knackered 30Gb hard disk. Fujitsu, too... :|

Might see if I can scrounge one from work, I'm sure there's a 30Gb IBM that hasn't yet had the Click O Death (it's a Deathstar) in my drawer....

(And it only showed the errors when doing emerge sync too, sigh)

 

[skyking]

originally posted by Mitzi

I like to support the small guy developers who write software for the love of writing software rather than just to make money....besides their stuff is usually better than commercial stuff anyway

Here here! These guys who put together things like spybot S+D, knoppix, EAC, they deserve all the credit they can get. The very cleanliness of the code that some folks write is just amazing. Why do so many of the commercially made apps have so much garbage in them, eh?
I hope to visit friends in your country soon, and I will remember to shoot you guys a PM before I do

 

[txxxx]

You wouldnt be 'warez free' if the publishers and developers had enough sense and sold a 'non-profit home version' at a reasonable price , would you now

Only companies who make large use of such applications such as Adobe Photoshop should need to pay the full license cost, as they'll be the one's reaping the profits. Where as the home user, will be tweaking now and then.

(If only publishers and developers thought a little instead of dreaming of Microsoft like monopolies....)

 

[Nothinman]

You wouldnt be 'warez free' if the publishers and developers had enough sense and sold a 'non-profit home version' at a reasonable price , would you now

I would, havn't source code available means more to me than having a brand name.

Only companies who make large use of such applications such as Adobe Photoshop should need to pay the full license cost, as they'll be the one's reaping the profits. Where as the home user, will be tweaking now and then.

The other side of the argument is that home user's don't need photoshop, there are plenty of lower costing alternatives out there that would be more than enough capability-wise.

 

[drag]

Some programs will always be closed source.

Something like photoshop, maybe or at least most high end graphics, , will be in part closed source.

The cost of the developement for these things are so high, but the target audiance is limited in both scope and programming skills, but the apps are important enough that they are willing to pay big bucks for them.

Other things that will pretty much be sorta closed source is going to be video games. Not because it's not possible to make open source games, but is that I considure them more to be a artistic programs then actual applications. Maybe the engines would be competely open source, but the finished product should be treated like art.

 

[earthman]

To set the record straight, yeah, I do know what NAT is. Just because a router has NAT enabled doesn't mean it can't be hacked. It's only as good as its software is engineered to be. If we're talking routers issued by ISPs, half of them don't even have an admin password set, so once you know the IP, you're in like Flint. Don't tell me how secure NAT is, I've seen them hacked, and had to clean up the mess afterwards. Does this make me an expert? Probably not, but I have learned a few things. Even if the router is well configured, if the computer is advertising its presence through open ports, it does little good. The typical system has anywhere from several to dozens open. There are utilities at grc.com and dslreports.com that will show this. You people who don't know what I'm talking about open your command prompt and run netstat -an. I've seen ordinary networked desktops running SQL databases with hundreds of ports open.
I'd like to know where all this "free" software is that works so great. Most of the "free" programs I've seen are pretty lame. Believe me, when I see free stuff that equals GoLive or Dreamweaver, I'll jump on it. Its the lack of serious software that has kept me from using Linux as more than an excercise in curiosity. Thats assuming you can even get it to install, which has been hit or miss for me. Microsoft doesn't dominate through strength of numbers, it's because they sell products that are easy to use, polished, and work well, not to mention that the OS has a high percieved value due to the fact it runs millions of applications. Most of the people who claim otherwise don't actually seem to own or use many of their products (unless its warez), as far as I've seen personally. Microsoft owns 92% of the desktop because their product works best in that environment, not for any other reason at this point in time.
Another thing thats amazing is how much time people are willing to spend trying to set up some oddball distro that has poor usability, when if they even had to spend an extra 10 minutes setting up Windows, they would be soooooooo quick to dump on it for being a bad product. I have work to get done on my systems, I can't spend days screwing around trying to get DiNgleBallZ L33T LiNUX v0.02 or some other BS to work. (don't think I haven't spent any time with it, I have, way too much time) I wish there was a real alternative to Microsoft, but at this point, there isn't. And don't say Mac, they're even more arrogant than Microsoft. (although I do have one) The Linux distros need to get alot better and alot more standardized, before they will have enough users to interest the big software developers whose apps drive the desktop market as much or more than Microsoft's marketing power.

That's all, Folks.

 

[Nothinman]

To set the record straight, yeah, I do know what NAT is. Just because a router has NAT enabled doesn't mean it can't be hacked. It's only as good as its software is engineered to be. If we're talking routers issued by ISPs, half of them don't even have an admin password set, so once you know the IP, you're in like Flint. Don't tell me how secure NAT is, I've seen them hacked, and had to clean up the mess afterwards.

And just because the routers are misconfigured doesn't mean NAT isn't a good security practice. That's like saying Windows sucks because it makes you a local admin by default, as stupid as it may seem it's easily fixed.

Even if the router is well configured, if the computer is advertising its presence through open ports, it does little good.

Open ports don't advertise anything, someone has to check the ports to see if they're open and if they're doing that they already know you're there. And if NAT is setup the ports that are open on the PCs behind it aren't very important unless the router is configured to forward connection attempts to them.

I've seen ordinary networked desktops running SQL databases with hundreds of ports open.

SQL is not 'ordinary'.

Its the lack of serious software that has kept me from using Linux as more than an excercise in curiosity.

Millions of people seem to have found something worthwhile in Linux, I know I have, it's been my main desktop for 4+ years and I only keep Windows in VMWare for 2 applications at work.

Microsoft doesn't dominate through strength of numbers, it's because they sell products that are easy to use, polished, and work well,

They dominate because they started early when no other company thought computers would be as popular with 'normal' people as they are now and now everyone's so entrenched in MS-only software and technology they don't have a choice but to keep using it. If Office2K3's XML file format is the default and good filters are written for OpenOffice I can easily see a lot of organizations dropping MS Office in favor of the free, just as capable alternative. MS Office Pro costs like $500 a license, you really think people would keep paying for that if they didn't have to?

not to mention that the OS has a high percieved value due to the fact it runs millions of applications

IME the large majority of those applications suck hard.

Another thing thats amazing is how much time people are willing to spend trying to set up some oddball distro that has poor usability, when if they even had to spend an extra 10 minutes setting up Windows, they would be soooooooo quick to dump on it for being a bad product.

Because MS rants and raves about how easy their software is, if I can't find how to do something in 10m it is bad and what makes it worse is the fact that their documentation sucks so if you can't find it right off the bad you've got no chance of finding the documentation on it.

The Linux distros need to get alot better and alot more standardized, before they will have enough users to interest the big software developers whose apps drive the desktop market as much or more than Microsoft's marketing power.

You mean standardized like Microsoft's software? Almost every one of their apps has a different UI. Windows itself, Office, WMP, Visual Studio, etc are all MS software and they don't even follow MS' own UI standards so how's that for hypocrisy? And in a few years we'll have Longhorn which will be completely different, yet again.

I'm not saying Linux is for everyone, but your complaints are completely unfounded these days and show how little you actually know about Linux and the free software around it. In the 4 years I've been using Linux on my main desktop the only thing I've really missed out on are games and most of them these days are rehashes of old games anyway. I also have a friend at work who was 100% Microsoft fan boy who's put Linux on his notebook and the only thing he didn't find a replacement for was MS Money, apparently he didn't like GNU Cash.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: earthman
I'd like to know where all this "free" software is that works so great. Most of the "free" programs I've seen are pretty lame. Believe me, when I see free stuff that equals GoLive or Dreamweaver, I'll jump on it. Its the lack of serious software that has kept me from using Linux as more than an excercise in curiosity.

Once you create your great websites in GoLive and Dreamweaver, you upload them all to IIS servers running windows?

Thats assuming you can even get it to install, which has been hit or miss for me.

I could never get windows to be stable on via motherboards, so what?

Microsoft doesn't dominate through strength of numbers, it's because they sell products that are easy to use, polished, and work well, not to mention that the OS has a high percieved value due to the fact it runs millions of applications.

They dominate for many reasons, the perceived quality of their products only being one. Also realize that these are only your opinions and are disagreed with by MANY people.

Most of the people who claim otherwise don't actually seem to own or use many of their products (unless its warez), as far as I've seen personally.

How many of their products do you need to use before you're worthy of assessing their quality? How does warezing the product make you less qualified to judge its quality? Does a warezed piece of software act fundamentally different from a legit copy in any way that impacts the user's overall experience?

Microsoft owns 92% of the desktop because their product works best in that environment, not for any other reason at this point in time.

Are you really confident about that? No other reason?

Another thing thats amazing is how much time people are willing to spend trying to set up some oddball distro that has poor usability, when if they even had to spend an extra 10 minutes setting up Windows, they would be soooooooo quick to dump on it for being a bad product.

It's quite obvious, to me at least, that a person with that attitude already has reasons to dislike windows, and either is interested in messing around with "some oddball distro" because they find it fun, and/or they think it's worth their investement of time in the long run. I don't think they would call windows a bad product because they had to spend 10 minutes doing whatever with it, but for other reasons that they had accumulated over time. This really seems like a bad example to try to make some point out of. What is your point, anyways?

I have work to get done on my systems, I can't spend days screwing around trying to get DiNgleBallZ L33T LiNUX v0.02 or some other BS to work.

Yeah, that darn dingleballz linux. You know, I have work to get done too, and when I sit down at a windows machine, I become visibly frustrated because it works in a way that overall I find extremely ... frustrating. I could say that I can get work done faster in X11 on a unix machine, but I won't, because honestly I think the rate at which a person gets things done is more dependent on the person than the tools they use. However, I still find windows a royal pain in the ass to use. But hey, that's just me. Imagine that, a subjective opinion! What a concept.

(don't think I haven't spent any time with it, I have, way too much time) I wish there was a real alternative to Microsoft, but at this point, there isn't.

Um, for you. It should be quite obvious that for many people, there are very real alternatives. Not even alternatives. Just natural choices. Linux and BSD and OSX aren't "alternatives" to windows for me, they're just operating systems. Windows is the one that needs to do a hell of a lot of work before I'd consider it an alternative.

And don't say Mac, they're even more arrogant than Microsoft. (although I do have one)

I thought you needed to get work done? Where does arrogance enter the picture? How does your computer impose a personality on you that prevents you from getting things done? And the last comment is just hilarious. What kind of argument are you even trying to make?

The Linux distros need to get alot better and alot more standardized, before they will have enough users to interest the big software developers whose apps drive the desktop market as much or more than Microsoft's marketing power.

But to a lot of people, none of that really even matters.

 

[drag]

Its the lack of serious software that has kept me from using Linux as more than an excercise in curiosity.

Well maybe it's that Linux is a bit to serious for normal users. Companies like IBM, Oracle, Novell, Sun and a whole host of others considure Linux serious enough to recommend Linux as a direct replacement for older versions of their propriatory OSes/software , or at least complementary OS for the software they sell. IBM in fact has talked serveral of their traditional AIX users to switch to Linux. In every level of their computer sales they have Linux offered as a replacement for their traditional OSes. Before they had 4 completely different OSes that they had to maintain and develope for and they've replaced there functionality with open source tools combined with IBM's propriatory software.

In high-end 3d graphics Linux is slowly replacing all the SGI stuff and is close to becoming a industry standard for large rendering farms. Maya and another-high-end-3d-software-manufacture-I-can't remember has released Linux versions of there software.

Truth is anything that runs on any other version of Unix can be made to run on linux just as well as any other OS. The lack of standards that perceive is mostly cosmetic. User interfaces come and go, but porting from Unix to Linux is easy because they worked hard in it's design to make it compatable with other OSes. In many cases Linux is actually pretty conservative in it's design choices.

Not that I am trying to get into a argument or anything, it's just even though Microsoft still has a stranglehold on desktops doesn't mean that Linux is becoming widely accepted in most aspects of computing and has been for some time.

 

[earthman]

I stand by what I said earlier. I have nothing against any operating system, I don't proselytize for anyone. I think people should use what works for them. I get tired of the evangelizing for Linux when its a comically unsuitable solution for the typical user environment. I first tried using Linux in 1996 because I was looking for an alternative too, but it never remotely lived up to the hype. Linux distros have gotten much better, but Windows has gotten better faster. Linux' outdated "piece from here, piece from there, any desktop will do" architecture is not the future of computing.

 

[phpdog]

Hi ,

Ive been a windows user since i started using computers about 12 years , but i just bought my first non Windows OS the other days thats what attracted me to this thread. I bought SuSE Linux 8.2 ... and as soon as i seen it i thought ....... WOW this is something special.

Everytime i used to buy the new windows , for the amount of money i was paying it wasent that much different from the previous windows i had already ( with the exeption of Windows XP Pro ) but this i got very very cheap compared to Windows .

I paid £9.99 at PC World ( UK ) reduced from £35.99 .

And for that i couldnt belive the amount of app's and the quality of the UI's it was great ... and if i new what i now know about Linux ,I would have changed to Linux a LONG time ago.

I just wish everyone knew what other OS packages are available other that Windows .... because it seems you get a lot more for a lot less.


thats my quote of the week " Linux = A lot more , for a lot less "


bye

 

[Borgthepieeater]

Thanks dope, i got so many nero 6's im gonna have to use em like aol cds, MUG HOLDERS! hehehe. I also got some free copies of adobe photshop 2.0, legit of course, moving in the gaming circles certanly has its advanteges, as does working for a company that wants to sell insurance more than pc's, any1 on this 'little' side of the pind will understand what i mean! que tune that makes u wince with agony .....


ouch.

 

[imported_Phil]

moving in the gaming circles certanly has its advanteges, as does working for a company that wants to sell insurance more than pc's, any1 on this 'little' side of the pind will understand what i mean! que tune that makes u wince with agony .....

What. The. Hell. Are. You. Talking. About?

That's the last time I mention to someone at work that I hang out on Anandtech <sigh>

 

[Overkast]

Originally posted by: DopeFiend

...and am now 100% warez free- it's a weird feeling after all this time, but at least I can sleep soundly now!

You need to re-format your Hard Drive like 7 times to erase the registry... otherwise your history can still be traced and it can still be known that you HAD illegal software.

That goes for illegal audio files as well. People think they can just delete their audio files and claim they never had them.

 

[lowtech1]

Originally posted by: Overkast

Originally posted by: DopeFiend

...and am now 100% warez free- it's a weird feeling after all this time, but at least I can sleep soundly now!

You need to re-format your Hard Drive like 7 times to erase the registry... otherwise your history can still be traced and it can still be known that you HAD illegal software.

That goes for illegal audio files as well. People think they can just delete their audio files and claim they never had them.

Don't forget to built faraday cage in your network of under ground bunkers because big brother is listening.

 

[Soybomb]

Originally posted by: Overkast

Originally posted by: DopeFiend

...and am now 100% warez free- it's a weird feeling after all this time, but at least I can sleep soundly now!

You need to re-format your Hard Drive like 7 times to erase the registry... otherwise your history can still be traced and it can still be known that you HAD illegal software.

That goes for illegal audio files as well. People think they can just delete their audio files and claim they never had them.

Actually you could format 100 times and still recover the information since formatting doesn't overwrite the drive. You would need to do multiple low lever formats or preferably a secure deletion program that writes garbage to the drive over many passes. Of course thats assuming someone cares about you enough to pay for data recovery on your drive which isn't likely.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Soybomb

Originally posted by: Overkast

Originally posted by: DopeFiend

...and am now 100% warez free- it's a weird feeling after all this time, but at least I can sleep soundly now!

You need to re-format your Hard Drive like 7 times to erase the registry... otherwise your history can still be traced and it can still be known that you HAD illegal software.

That goes for illegal audio files as well. People think they can just delete their audio files and claim they never had them.

Actually you could format 100 times and still recover the information since formatting doesn't overwrite the drive. You would need to do multiple low lever formats or preferably a secure deletion program that writes garbage to the drive over many passes. Of course thats assuming someone cares about you enough to pay for data recovery on your drive which isn't likely.

If your that paraniod about your HD, the best solution I know of involves a 12 gauge shotgun and bird shot at close range.

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

If your that paraniod about your HD, the best solution I know of involves a 12 gauge shotgun and bird shot at close range.

Bah..Hell with the birdshot, Go for the slugs.