Bill Gates wants to eat your soul
#21
Well, I get the meaning and read the preamble (or at least part of it), but most GNU/Linux OSs and GPL-licensed software are free of charge anyways because of "free as in freedom." If the coder allows it, then that's what it will be.

Too bad about Microsoft trying to bastardise the open source paradigm. However, I suspect that the open source traditionalists will not go down without a fight, and that is what I know.

By the way Fant0men, which GNU/Linux OS do you use? I use Linux Mint. I know it's a copycat of Ubuntu, but it does run very well, even on low-end computers.

EDIT: Something else. Funny that you mentioned Microsoft's foray into the Open Source market. It kind of reminds me of the Central Chinese government actually justifying its massacre of the student protest of Tianamen in 1989. They say the decision to bring about the massacre is to bring about "global and economic stabliilty." They made this a year ago, when the Hong Kong protests began; before that, they not only denied it of ever happening, conversations about it have been forbidden. It makes me sick to the stomach.

Anyhow, after all that, I do think Windows 7 was the last best operating system made by Microsoft.
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#22
(Jun 18, 2020, 23:17 pm)RobertX Wrote: Well, I get the meaning and read the preamble (or at least part of it), but most GNU/Linux OSs and GPL-licensed software are free of charge anyways because of "free as in freedom." If the coder allows it, then that's what it will be.

Too bad about Microsoft trying to bastardise the open source paradigm. However, I suspect that the open source traditionalists will not go down without a fight, and that is what I know.

By the way Fant0men, which GNU/Linux OS do you use? I use Linux Mint. I know it's a copycat of Ubuntu, but it does run very well, even on low-end computers.

EDIT: Something else. Funny that you mentioned Microsoft's foray into the Open Source market. It kind of reminds me of the Central Chinese government actually justifying its massacre of the student protest of Tianamen in 1989. They say the decision to bring about the massacre is to bring about "global and economic stabliilty." They made this a year ago, when the Hong Kong protests began; before that, they not only denied it of ever happening, conversations about it have been forbidden. It makes me sick to the stomach.

Anyhow, after all that, I do think Windows 7 was the last best operating system made by Microsoft.

Right now I'm using Fedora, which is the community developed version of Red Hat Linux. Packages in Fedora tend to be newer than in Debian / Ubuntu or Ubuntu-derived distros, which is nice if you want a new kernel. I did use various flavors of Ubuntu for years and years though. It's still a great distro, especially now that they've ditched Unity and gone back to GNOME. I mostly used Xubuntu, as Xfce is a very light-weight desktop environment, which I like. I've used Mint before. It's a nice distro.

The reason I switched to Fedora was that I couldn't get Ubuntu to boot on this build for some strange reason. Maybe a fuck-up of mine. The only thing I can think of is accidentally booting the install media in legacy BIOS mode (I have UEFI), and perhaps that fucked with the bootloader so it couldn't boot once installed. But if I didn't have legacy mode enabled in my UEFI I don't think the install media would even boot in BIOS mode to begin with. So I'm leaning towards something was wrong with that version of Ubuntu. Probably been fixed since then, but I'm used to Fedora now so I'm sticking with it. I really like their package manager (dnf).

I think Windows will probably improve now that Microsoft is seeing serious competition from Apple and Linux. But no matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it's still a pig. I'm way past ever wanting to deal with Windows again. All those wasted years of my childhood, just formatting and reinstalling all the time Sad I will hold Microsoft accountable for that until my death. Windows gave me the impression that computers are inherently unreliable and full of errors, when in fact it was all due to Windows.
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#23
@RX - A correction. There was NO massacre at Tienamen Square.
The Chinese military was called in to disperse the demonstrators after months of infighting within the political leadership, who permitted it in the first place. And it wasnt all about 'freedom', as many protestors wanted to return to Maoism.
The troops were met at the edge of the city by a violent contingent of 'students' and others who blockaded the roads, and firebombed the military and police vehicles, and beat to death their occupants.
The original contingent of the military wasnt armed. After the first 'massacre' of police and troops, the government went whole hog. It was open warfare, and thats what the reporters holed up at the Peking hotel were hearing, presuming the gunfire was from the Square.
When the troops finally entered the square, the students agreed to peacefully leave. And were permitted exit. There were reports of a few gunshots at this time, but it was limited, and no confirmed deaths from the Square itself. The bylines about the hotel were front page material, later supplied with gory material from the protestors, apparent fromt the original assaults outside the city, but said to be in the area of the Square. The few reporters on the ground at the Square did have their accounts either ignored, of published on inner pages of newpapers, and ignored by the talking heads.

@FO - For cutting edge try Debian Testing, and if you like nightly alphas, Debian Experimental should do just fine. This is Debian and Not Ubuntu, and the filesystems are different. They also have a daemon for importing Ubuntu packages. Forgot its name.
The only time I have ever had to reformat a Win system was when some 'freeware' AV program putzed up the internet connection when I tried to remove it. However, with Ubuntu I had to reformat every time a damn 'dist-upgrade' came around.
Devuan too. Debian will 'dist-upgrade', though with a heavily loaded system (20k+ packages) a bit of hacking of var/lib/dpkg might be needed.
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#24
Yeah, waregim?

I guess the next thing you know, the Holocaust didn't happen either.

Or 9/11 or the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

By the way Fant0men, how many computers do you have in your keeping, and do they all have GNU/Linux distros in them?

Your prerogative if you don't want to answer.
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#25
(Jun 20, 2020, 21:13 pm)RobertX Wrote: EDIT: By the way Fant0men, how many computers do you have in your keeping, and do they all have GNU/Linux distros in them?

Your prerogative if you don't want to answer.

I currently only have one PC that I'm actively using (the one with Fedora). I have a really old laptop too, that has Xubuntu on it, but I'm not using that laptop. I'll probably take a trip to the local recycling station and throw the laptop away soon. I have some other old electronics I need to throw away as well, like old hard drives (that I've wiped using dd with /dev/zero and /dev/random).

I've been running Linux as my main OS for 10+ years now. Used to have a dual-boot setup on my previous PC, but now I just have a Win10 VM that I start on rare occasions when I need to use a Windows app that doesn't work in Wine.

(Jun 20, 2020, 13:53 pm)waregim Wrote: @FO - For cutting edge try Debian Testing, and if you like nightly alphas, Debian Experimental should do just fine. This is Debian and Not Ubuntu, and the filesystems are different. They also have a daemon for importing Ubuntu packages. Forgot its name.
The only time I have ever had to reformat a Win system was when some 'freeware' AV program putzed up the internet connection when I tried to remove it. However, with Ubuntu I had to reformat every time a damn 'dist-upgrade' came around.
Devuan too. Debian will 'dist-upgrade', though with a heavily loaded system (20k+ packages) a bit of hacking of var/lib/dpkg might be needed.

I have OCD when it comes to computers, and any little thing that acts up annoys me, so that's why I used to format a lot back in my Windows days. With Linux I usually don't have to format as there's nearly always a way to fix the weird issues (using terminal commands), after doing a little research online.

My current install of Fedora is 2 years old, and I've upgraded it in-place the whole time, no formatting or reinstalling. I started with version 28 and now I'm on 32. That's unheard of when it comes to Windows, at least for me. I could never do stuff like that in Windows and have my system functioning properly afterwards. I think it has a lot to do with package management in Linux, and how all system components are split up in separate packages, so if there's a problem with a few of those packages that can always be resolved. I think the Windows OS is more like a big lump, with no clear separation between system components.

I read something about Microsoft having a package manager now, so maybe they'll be gradually moving the Windows update stuff to that, and in the future they might have the package manager take care of everything just like we do in Linux.
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#26
Back to topic. I think about more than ten years ago, Hong Kongners who want to retaliate the Japanese innovation phenomenon in recognition of the Japanese occupation of China tried their hardest to boycott their products, but were not strong enough because it's become a part of everyday use. Rice cookers, video game consoles, and small devices, even Tamagotchis cannot be boycotted.

Reminds me of Microsoft and my dependence of it. Most people, especially guys like me, people want to boycott Microsoft. Although I have started using GNU/Linux as my host computer on one of my computers for two years, I have to rely on Windows 7 on this one for downloading, games, writing documents, and constructing DVDs of pirated downloads, and that is why I cannot rid myself of the Microsoft mould.

So, shame on me; I guess I sold myself to Microsoft a long time ago, and if God wants to get my soul, he has to pay Gates at a depreciated price because it's secondhand.
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#27
(Jun 21, 2020, 02:45 am)RobertX Wrote: Back to topic. I think about more than ten years ago, Hong Kongners who want to retaliate the Japanese innovation phenomenon in recognition of the Japanese occupation of China tried their hardest to boycott their products, but were not strong enough because it's become a part of everyday use. Rice cookers, video game consoles, and small devices, even Tamagotchis cannot be boycotted.

Reminds me of Microsoft and my dependence of it. Most people, especially guys like me, people want to boycott Microsoft. Although I have started using GNU/Linux as my host computer on one of my computers for two years, I have to rely on Windows 7 on this one for downloading, games, writing documents, and constructing DVDs of pirated downloads, and that is why I cannot rid myself of the Microsoft mould.

So, shame on me; I guess I sold myself to Microsoft a long time ago, and if God wants to get my soul, he has to pay Gates at a depreciated price because it's secondhand.

Downloading in Linux is as easy as in any other OS. There are tons of good BitTorrent clients etc. You can write documents perfectly fine in LibreOffice, and it's compatible with MS Office file formats. Constructing DVDs you can also do in Linux, as there are apps for that. Dunno why you'd want to deal with DVDs in this day and age, but it can be done in Linux. About the only valid excuse you mentioned is games. There are many games that aren't available for Linux, even though Steam has Proton now which has made a lot of Windows-only games playable in Linux.

Really, this mostly has to do with motivation, and the willingness to spend time and energy to re-learn some things. If you're not motivated to switch, you'll find endless excuses to stay in Windows land. I understand the will to be lazy, as I procrastinate all the time. But I think one should be honest about what the real issue is, and not blame outside things unnecessarily.

There aren't that many people in the world who absolutely depend on Windows except gamers, and perhaps people who edit videos professionally. I think if you're making music there's good software for that in Linux, although not the software people are used to (like Cubase or Ableton Live etc.).

If we want the commercial software vendors to release Linux versions of popular apps more people need to switch to Linux on the desktop, as that's the only way to convince these companies. They follow the money, and there's hardly any money incentive to release commercial software for Linux as things are right now. Desktop users of Linux are only a couple of percent of the total OS market.
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#28
I construct DVDs so I can watch them on TV. I know I can do that with a USB thumb drive and a device that has playback software like Kodi, but I tend to burn DVDs instead of just using a USB key and a TV box because I like to have something tangible with me. Over the years, I bought and copied DVDs also so that one of my external hard drives go dead, I would still have something with me, an extra copy that will thrive until I get another hard drive to copy my files back to. Also, I still love DVDs; I know it's not considered "normal" or "cost-effective," but I get a big thrill of translating them into something tangible, as I have said. I use ConvertXtoDVD for Windows 7, which is user-friendly for adding video files, compression, adding extras... I currently have a pirated version, but one day, I do intend to buy the software. I do so because I can do it with ease and can't think of another software that can do that as well; perhaps you can help me (and that's a big if).

Games are related to that too, though I have no trouble installing games on my Linux Mint box using Wine, but they're usually for testing multiplayer. If a friend or a cousin comes over, I can have a LAN game; I never go online or install single player games on my GNU/Linux box because I use my Windows 7 for that. Reason? Nothing specific really.

I use next to nothing when it comes to pirated software on Linux Mint, since I do use FOSS (free and open source) software like Libreoffice, Blender, Gimp, Handbrake. I keep Wine in my system, but I just use them for games.

I guess you would ask, why still Windows if I have all that functionality? As I said, a computer to play LAN games, play single player, burn DVD videos. Just give me one example that I should use another DVD video authoring software on GNU/Linux and I'll consider.
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#29
(Jun 21, 2020, 03:33 am)RobertX Wrote: I construct DVDs so I can watch them on TV. I know I can do that with a USB thumb drive and a device that has playback software like Kodi, but I tend to burn DVDs instead of just using a USB key and a TV box because I like to have something tangible with me. Over the years, I bought and copied DVDs also so that one of my external hard drives go dead, I would still have something with me, an extra copy that will thrive until I get another hard drive to copy my files back to. Also, I still love DVDs; I know it's not considered "normal" or "cost-effective," but I get a big thrill of translating them into something tangible, as I have said. I use ConvertXtoDVD for Windows 7, which is user-friendly for adding video files, compression, adding extras... I currently have a pirated version, but one day, I do intend to buy the software. I do so because I can do it with ease and can't think of another software that can do that as well; perhaps you can help me (and that's a big if).

Games are related to that too, though I have no trouble installing games on my Linux Mint box using Wine, but they're usually for testing multiplayer. If a friend or a cousin comes over, I can have a LAN game; I never go online or install single player games on my GNU/Linux box because I use my Windows 7 for that. Reason? Nothing specific really.

I use next to nothing when it comes to pirated software on Linux Mint, since I do use FOSS (free and open source) software like Libreoffice, Blender, Gimp, Handbrake. I keep Wine in my system, but I just use them for games.

I guess you would ask, why still Windows if I have all that functionality? As I said, a computer to play LAN games, play single player, burn DVD videos. Just give me one example that I should use another DVD video authoring software on GNU/Linux and I'll consider.

I did author a couple of DVDs in Linux some years ago, but I forgot the name of the app. It's probably one of the apps listed below.

A quick Google search generated this list:

https://www.dvdstyler.org/en/
https://rastersoft.com/programas/devede.html
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DVDAuthoring
https://alternativeto.net/category/burn-and-rip/dvd-authoring/?platform=linux
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#30
Thanks, I'll look through these, but I don't think I'm going to be forthcoming in dumping my Windows 7 computer.

EDIT: But since I'm going to need only one computer to stylise DVDs, if I do get another computer, I will install a GNU/Linux distribution on that one.

And I swear by it; I don't need another computer to do encoding/burning. Sadly, I probably can't either, as I can only afford refurbished machines. The computer I put a sole-boot setup which only contains Linux Mint is refurbished; it has an AMD Phenom Triple Core 64-bit released in 2008, so at least I am ready to keep an open mind.
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