YWAM Information Technology - Windows - Comments

WOOHOO!!!

tofirius — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 18:57:55 +0000

Awesome, man!!!! God rocks!!! That's so amazing... His timing is perfect!

Bless you!
Chris Bischoff
YWAM Latvia, Communications
www.ywamlatvia.com

re: Disadvantages of Linux

neo — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 13:52:39 +0100

Hi Judge,
sorry, didn't had the time right away and then kinda forgot to write that down. Although you should be happy that I was pretty gracious with the Mac disadvantages there is so much more I could've written down.... ;) But now here it comes. All against Linux.

- driver support not always that good or fast, sometimes drivers are never available, e.g. for the wireless PCMCIA card for my laptop
- the touch pad on laptops are a bit imprecise and/or too sensitive. So, a external mouse is pretty much needed which can be a pain on the road. On top of that I could find an option to disable the touch pad.
- many times Linux is that last version that get updated by software vendors and is therefore hanging behind the Windows and/or Mac version. Skype for example is lacking many features even in the latest beta version compared to long available stable versions of Windows. ⁽¹⁾
- some areas of profession are underdeveloped, like video production, although most programs can do more than the average Joe can do, anyways. ⁽¹⁾
- for very few software is no FOSS alternative available. E.g. if you want to develop something with Flash you need to have Windows or OSX. To date I don't know of anything to develop Flash on any *nix. Watching Flash is no problem though. ⁽¹⁾
- Linux is not really a gaming platform. So, a power gamer would most likely not choose Linux. Or he will have 2 computers or dual boot or Wine ⁽¹⁾ will become a good friend of him.
- specially with the actual distro there so much choice, that is just overwhelming for some people. Then there is not only the distro itself but also different desktop environments, most common probably Gnome and KDE.
- Linux needs just as much system resources as a up-to-date Windows, if not a little more. Many times people think they can try out Linux on their old computer but that then is many times a not so fun experience. It's like trying to run Windows Vista with full blown Aero on a old machine. Although, here is an advantage of the choice part mentioned above. There are light weight desktop environments available so that older computers can run a Linux with an up-to-date kernel but with an not so eye-candy and highly customizable desktop.

(1) If there is a desperate need for a specific software or version of software there is a possible solution though. I never tried it myself but I know that there is "Wine" available. No, that's not alcohol in that case. From the developers website: "Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available."
Means, with that it should be possible to run pretty much every software that is available for Windows, including Adobe Flash or Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Games, Quicken, etc. It's kinda a risk of course to buy something and then try it out. So, downloading a trial version is probably a good idea before spending any money.
Wine online:
Official Homepage
Wine at Wikipedia

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

vs. All Three

metamorphousthe — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:07:40 +0100

My wife and I use all three at home. My wife runs a Mac Book OS X with Parallels running XP. I run a Dell Inspiron 6400 Laptop dual boot with XP Pro and Kubuntu.

Without Getting into all the FOSS philosophical issues. I always believe that it leans more towards usability and support.

Usability being: How fast can someone pick up the use and navigation of the desktop to find and run programs. Obviously for a person who has used nothing but Windows, to ask them to now navigate a Linux distro or even a Mac OSX can be daunting if they are not willing to take on the challenge. Some people don't have that kind of patients. The easiest person(s) to take on "any" OS of choice would those willing to take on the challenge or those whom are not ingrained with one type of OS.

Support being: Amount of software available and the support thereof. Whether software at no-charge or even commercially purchased software (which the latter would definitely have the Tech Support end). Drivers for hardware is another issue. It IS true that being M'soft has the majority of the market it will stand to reason that it will have the majority of drivers available for just about any hardware out.

There are many aspects that made M'soft the majority holder of the software market. Without getting into any other issues known or rumored, one of them is that M'soft wanted to make their OS the easiest to use for any consumer. And at that they have.

So, IMHO what are the advantages of any of them:

1. Obviously M'soft would have more. Hook it up, turn it on, and you are ready to go. Let someone sit down and do there stuff. Any *nix distro would mean a little more of being sure that the drivers are available for the peripherals you are using, though most of the forefront popular distros would have plenty unless it is some specialized peripheral. Mac OS X would be right behind M'soft but the majority of the software and is commercially sold which would mean more expense out of your pocket.

2. Obviously any *nix version would have the leverage on software available as just about all the distros come pre-loaded with tons of software. The disadvantage I have always found is this ... if you are trying to draw someone to your distro, don't bog them down with many version of the same thing which can be quite confusing along with the naming of some of the software which can be also confusing.

What would I do if I had the opportunity and time? I would construct a *nix distro with a familiar desktop, obviously mimicking that of M'soft's desktop, design and layout with icons, naming of programs, etc. for all computers on a YWAM campus complete with all the drivers needed for the peripherals used on the campus. Basically making a YWAM Distribution. My reasoning behind this would be the obvious turn-around of staff that a YWAM campus goes through and the need to lessen the amount of training.

Now you might ask why a *nix distro that mimics M'soft and the *nix not having the usual support behind it like M'soft when you can just get the real thing? At that you would typically be correct except for another main issue a ministry like YWAM goes through ... costs of purchasing an OS.

"transformity" not "conformity" then you will understand things as with a new mind

Driver support

KevinColyer — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:48:02 +0000

Lack of drivers support is a problem with Linux, even common hardware like Nvidia accelerated 3D cards wont work out of the box, although drivers are available.

Wireless Cards can be very difficult to get to work too, although most Windows drivers can be made to work with Ndiswrapper, but this is not easy.

The reason is not lack of technical competence but ethics! If the manufacturers would open up their hardware very good drivers would get written very quickly. Linux's openness and freedom for the user are not values shared by many vendors (except IBM, Novell, Sun, HP et al!)

It is useful to check BEFORE you buy hardware for Linux.

However, you would be surprised just how much stuff just works out of the box! If you use a good live distribution on a CD you can test a machine before install. Then you will know!

You will have better success rates with older machines in many cases. One disadvantage with installing Windows on older machines is the hunt around the internet for drivers (assuming the network card works!). An advantage of Linux is the way older machines are supported straight away.

Hope this helps!

Kevin

Disadvantages of Linux

alex.costa — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 20:29:37 +0000

* Softaware instalation & Update (it has gone a long way with Yast2 and Zen Installer, also the famous apt-get for Debian but still there are a lot of library dependency issues and sometimes the best way is still to either compile or comandline RPM). For a normal desktop user it could be a pain.
* Although Linux has one of the best USB support, there are a lot of devices that are not geared towards the linux OS(which is not a Linux problem but affects it's users)

Disadvantages of Linux

conkey — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 18:27:01 +0000

OK, you mentioned the disadvantages of Windows and OSX, but what about the disadvantages of Linux? Is it so perfect that you couldn't think of any?

The Judge

"Cheap is good; but free is better!"

advantages of osx

neo — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:53:44 +0000

Hi,
from my experience with Macs....

- Stable
- Boots up very quickly
- Almost no viruses, etc.
- Based on Unix, so you can use Unix commands in a terminal if you're used to them anyways

Some disadvantages:
- With introducing the Widgets and using Safari Apple opened up a potential way for viruses, etc.
- Expensive, some may argue that it's not that much more, however, new versions of the OS come out fairly frequent. So, if I want to stay up-to-date I personally find it pretty costly.
- HD partitioning, at least to my knowledge, not as flexible as I would like to have

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

Linux Adv 2

alex.costa — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:33:23 +0000

Just to Add to the above list:

* Very flexible/mangeable
* Secure
* Admin access to raw config files so it's easy to impplement taylor made GUIs/WEB Apps for managing different programmes/servers/services
* Although not widely used (as desktops) it supports a wide range of hardware (including USB)
* Runs on PCs and MACs (good for recovery and troubleshooting)
* Portable (live CD/DVD or USB Device)
* GNU License - will always be OpenSource
* Samba Server makes it easy to network with other OSs
* Instalable in older computers
* Has good "out of the box" solutions for education (mainly primary educ.)
* Easy remote administration GUI or Comand Line (SSH)
* Can run Windows .exe apps with the help of WINE (not an emulator but a Reverse Engeneering of the Windows API)

Windows Adv 2

alex.costa — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:14:04 +0000

Just to add to the above list:

* Easy Software installation
* Lots of "out of the box" solutions
* U can run most Open Source applications on it
* Good for networking

advantages of linux

neo — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 04:10:01 +0000

Hi,
here is what I think is good about Linux.

- It's OpenSource and for free
- Many different distributions fit many different needs
- Almost no virus, etc. are existing
- Almost all programs are OpenSource and for free
- Very large online community can help with probably every problem, the hardest thing is to find the right help in a community that size ;-)
- Server version without graphical interface
- Very stable OS

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

advantages of windows

neo — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 04:02:43 +0000

Hi,
OK here I start off with Windows. This is not necessarily a complete list of what I see as advantage, it's just a start.

- I like the way how easy it is to partition a HD and store different data at the exact spot I want it to be
- It's customizable to the point I need it
- Very good hardware support by because it's so widely used
- Many people can help because it's so widely used

Some disadvantages are:
- Many viruses, etc
- Needs to be re-installed from time to time

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

Firewire networking

neo — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 06:36:13 +0000

Hi,
we have 3 fairly new iMacs in the office. I haven't noticed a monitor port but I will check that as soon as I remember to do so.
With the backup. What is the problem with having a external HD connect permanently? How would you do a automated backup? This feature is most likely built for the average home user. I don't think that a lot of them have a backup server at home. So, what else is possible besides using a external HD? DVD most likely is the worst idea. What if you are doing something else, at the moment the backup starts, like watching a movie listening to a CD etc. or what if one DVD is not enough? I guess a external HD is for most ppl the easiest way to do an automated backup.
And honestly, a backup will most times not be done manually by the user. If it's not automated we can consider it as not existing. So, in that sense, for the average user external HD is a pretty good idea for a backup, I guess. Or is there another option that I'm missing right now?

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

Firewire networking

R.Blevins — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:35:50 +0000

That's true, you can network using firewire, and in my experience, the settings and transfer wizard has worked well for me in XP (although others I know have had some trouble with it).

Don't you have to setup the pc beforehand to use firewire networking? That wouldn't be handy if your computer crashed or if for some reason you couldn't use the screen.

Firewire target mode is completely different to networking. You can use it even if the computer won't boot up normally (whether or not the screen is working) and retrieve your files (unless the hard drive is fried, and then you're in trouble, but even then there are some things you can do).

@neo, As far as iMacs are concerned, the new ones at least (not sure about older ones) have a monitor port (HDI?) so you can hook up an external monitor.

I agree with neo whole-heartedly that a backup is the best way to go. The next version of Mac OS (Leopard) will include something called Time Machine which should make backups easy and almost invisible. You do have to have an external hard drive hooked up all the time which seems like it might be a little inconvenient, but we'll see how it works.

If you have a full backup of your hard drive on a firewire disk (WARNING: doesn't work with usb) then you can even easily boot up from the external hard drive. In that way you could also retrieve stuff from a crashed system (again, the screen and hard drive still have to be intact).

Re: File and Settings transfer Wizard

neo — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:09:48 +0000

Hi,
well, I never heard of that but sounds interesting.
However, I must say that I don't do something like that anyway. If I (re-)install a computer I always set up a clean system. I know, takes longer than just transferring everything over but I like that more than using the same old cluttered system I already have. By making a clean install and "controlled" copying of the data I have a nice and newly organized computer. But maybe all you guys always organize your computers very well ;-) Or simply, my standards of how a computer should be organized are too high.

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

File and Settings transfer Wizard

Schmale — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:06:10 +0000

I dont honestly know how well it works, but I know that you can use the "File and settings transfer wizard" to transfer all that kind of stuff, so you could network the 2 computers, and then use the wizard...