Hi. Yes, again.
In this e-mail I just want to share a tiny bit of my personal experience with people and computers and operating systems. It applies to Windows XP and, especially, Windows 7. I don't know about Windows 8; haven't used; Nor OS X.
FIRST THINGS FIRST:
Normal people don't know how to install Windows. Period. Unless there is hardware coming with Fedora pre-installed, don't even dream about “compete with” or “compare” a pre-installed Windows with a Fedora that you have do download(!), boot(!) and install.
Otherwise, the best you can try is to create a DAMN EASY installer and pray. And by “damn easy” I'm talking about a screen to select the language (or detect it automatically, somehow, and skip this step) and another screen with two big buttons saying “Erase everything and Install Fedora ” and “Install Fedora alongside existing OS and data”. No partitioning, ever (or, at least, let it hidden behind a tiny something); choose a filesystem, choose a layout, and make it work (great) on every workstation's disk scenarios out there. Prefer to expose the other needed steps (initial setup) after the system is already on the disk, so the “adventurer”, if scared, can't give up anymore.
In another words: “Install Fedora” should be compared to “Install Windows”; “Pre-installed Windows” should be compared to “Pre-installed Fedora”.
Also, really important, is to perceive that “someone installed Windows/Fedora on my computer” is way more common that “I installed Windows/Fedora on my computer”.
THE FALLACY:
Respecting the previous reasoning, never compare “customized Windows” with “stock Fedora”. So, below, I will compare “stock Windows” with “stock Fedora” (by “stock” I mean freshly installed from a official media; by “customized” I mean “stock” plus additional external work from someone - be individual, company, vendor, etc).
# Codecs = MP3, AAC, H.264, H.265, Vorbis, Opus, VP8, VP9.
Windows: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No, No, No, No. Fedora: No, No, No, No, Yes, Yes, Yes,Yes.
Conclusion: analyzing the 8 (4 audio, 4 video) current big codecs on the market, we have a tie! Is also worth noting that installing additional codecs on Windows is of a equivalent pain that on Fedora.
# Office Stuff = xls(x), doc(x), ppt(x), ods, odt, odp.
Windows: No, No, No, No, No, No. Fedora: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.
Conclusion: in (Microsoft) Windows, even to open files from another Microsoft product (Office), you can't without additional work from you (or someone else).
# Miscellaneous = PDF, torrent, common archives.
Windows: No(!), No, No. Fedora: Yes, Yes(?), Yes (except RAR, for no reason).
Conclusion: WTF Windows? No PDF?!
# Graphic Cards = Intel, AMD, Nvidia.
Windows: No, No, No. Fedora: Yes, Yes, Yes.
Conclusion: Oh, boy! Windows without video drivers is pure garbage! You have to, at minimum, select to install the driver on Windows Update to have 2D (and 3D) acceleration! Sometimes even to have the correct resolution! On other hand, Fedora comes with all these preinstalled! Yay!
# Other Hardware (drivers).
Windows: maybe. Fedora: maybe.
Conclusion: have luck, or have fun looking for drivers. On both systems.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Fedora isn't the perfect OS. But Windows also isn't. A bunch of reasons in favor of Windows aren't technical merits. Maybe commercial, or social; but not technical.
Fedora can do better, sure. And it will. Especially if it doesn't fall in such misconceptions.
This also highlight the importance of the “pre-installed” (or “just works”) concept. Be OSes, apps, codecs, drivers, or whatever. As I showed to you, Windows without the “pre-installed” concept, simply doesn't shine at all. So, Fedora have to keep this always in mind: normal people don't know how to “install” things.
I don't expect this to be agreed or disagreed. I just wanted to share a bit of my experience on the role of “IT guy” that I do to some normal people. Hope it helps, somewhat. Thanks.
On 12/05/15 07:30, Diogo Campos (gmail) wrote:
Hi. Yes, again.
In this e-mail I just want to share a tiny bit of my personal experience with people and computers and operating systems. It applies to Windows XP and, especially, Windows 7. I don't know about Windows 8; haven't used; Nor OS X.
FIRST THINGS FIRST:
Normal people don't know how to install Windows. Period. Unless there is hardware coming with Fedora pre-installed, don't even dream about “compete with” or “compare” a pre-installed Windows with a Fedora that you have do download(!), boot(!) and install.
Otherwise, the best you can try is to create a DAMN EASY installer and pray. And by “damn easy” I'm talking about a screen to select the language (or detect it automatically, somehow, and skip this step) and another screen with two big buttons saying “Erase everything and Install Fedora ” and “Install Fedora alongside existing OS and data”. No partitioning, ever (or, at least, let it hidden behind a tiny something); choose a filesystem, choose a layout, and make it work (great) on every workstation's disk scenarios out there. Prefer to expose the other needed steps (initial setup) after the system is already on the disk, so the “adventurer”, if scared, can't give up anymore.
In another words: “Install Fedora” should be compared to “Install Windows”; “Pre-installed Windows” should be compared to “Pre-installed Fedora”.
Also, really important, is to perceive that “someone installed Windows/Fedora on my computer” is way more common that “I installed Windows/Fedora on my computer”.
THE FALLACY:
Respecting the previous reasoning, never compare “customized Windows” with “stock Fedora”. So, below, I will compare “stock Windows” with “stock Fedora” (by “stock” I mean freshly installed from a official media; by “customized” I mean “stock” plus additional external work from someone - be individual, company, vendor, etc).
# Codecs = MP3, AAC, H.264, H.265, Vorbis, Opus, VP8, VP9.
Windows: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No, No, No, No.
Fedora: No, No, No, No, Yes, Yes, Yes,Yes.
Conclusion: analyzing the 8 (4 audio, 4 video) current big codecs on the market, we have a tie! Is also worth noting that installing additional codecs on Windows is of a equivalent pain that on Fedora.
# Office Stuff = xls(x), doc(x), ppt(x), ods, odt, odp.
Windows: No, No, No, No, No, No.
Fedora: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.
Conclusion: in (Microsoft) Windows, even to open files from another Microsoft product (Office), you can't without additional work from you (or someone else).
# Miscellaneous = PDF, torrent, common archives.
Windows: No(!), No, No.
Fedora: Yes, Yes(?), Yes (except RAR, for no reason).
Conclusion: WTF Windows? No PDF?!
# Graphic Cards = Intel, AMD, Nvidia.
Windows: No, No, No.
Fedora: Yes, Yes, Yes.
Conclusion: Oh, boy! Windows without video drivers is pure garbage! You have to, at minimum, select to install the driver on Windows Update to have 2D (and 3D) acceleration! Sometimes even to have the correct resolution! On other hand, Fedora comes with all these preinstalled! Yay!
# Other Hardware (drivers).
Windows: maybe.
Fedora: maybe.
Conclusion: have luck, or have fun looking for drivers. On both systems.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Fedora isn't the perfect OS. But Windows also isn't. A bunch of reasons in favor of Windows aren't technical merits. Maybe commercial, or social; but not technical.
Fedora can do better, sure. And it will. Especially if it doesn't fall in such misconceptions.
This also highlight the importance of the “pre-installed” (or “just works”) concept. Be OSes, apps, codecs, drivers, or whatever. As I showed to you, Windows without the “pre-installed” concept, simply doesn't shine at all. So, Fedora have to keep this always in mind: normal people don't know how to “install” things.
I don't expect this to be agreed or disagreed. I just wanted to share a bit of my experience on the role of “IT guy” that I do to some normal people. Hope it helps, somewhat. Thanks.
Install Fedora, try to add an "app" to autostart. Bonus points if you try to help yourself by using "Help".
Abis.
On 05/12/2015 08:30 AM, Diogo Campos (gmail) wrote: [...]
This also highlight the importance of the “pre-installed” (or “just works”) concept. Be OSes, apps, codecs, drivers, or whatever. As I showed to you, Windows without the “pre-installed” concept, simply doesn't shine at all. So, Fedora have to keep this always in mind: normal people don't know how to “install” things.
That's the point. Pre-installed Fedora can stand for 12 months until it's obsoleted. Pre-installed MS Windows *may* stand as long as you have the original hardware. I don't install Fedora to my grandma because she can't update it when it's EOL.
ma.
p.s.: I'm not talking about Linux, I'm talking just about Fedora.
On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Diogo Campos (gmail) diogocamposwd@gmail.com wrote:
Hi. Yes, again. [....]
# Codecs = MP3, AAC, H.264, H.265, Vorbis, Opus, VP8, VP9.
Windows: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No, No, No, No.
Fedora: No, No, No, No, Yes, Yes, Yes,Yes.
Conclusion: analyzing the 8 (4 audio, 4 video) current big codecs on the market, we have a tie! Is also worth noting that installing additional codecs on Windows is of a equivalent pain that on Fedora.
Those codecs do not have an equal market share.
# Office Stuff = xls(x), doc(x), ppt(x), ods, odt, odp.
Windows: No, No, No, No, No, No.
Fedora: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.
Conclusion: in (Microsoft) Windows, even to open files from another Microsoft product (Office), you can't without additional work from you (or someone else).
Well you can open doc/x files using Wordpad. But given that most OEMs ship some version of Office that's a moot point.
# Miscellaneous = PDF, torrent, common archives.
Windows: No(!), No, No.
Fedora: Yes, Yes(?), Yes (except RAR, for no reason).
Where is the free RAR implementation? (That's probably the only reason)
And btw. I don't think installing a torrent client by default makes any sense.
As for PDF that's true but OEMs tend to include something.
# Graphic Cards = Intel, AMD, Nvidia.
Windows: No, No, No.
-> Wrong; Wrong; Wrong
Fedora: Yes, Yes, Yes.
Conclusion: Oh, boy! Windows without video drivers is pure garbage! You have to, at minimum, select to install the driver on Windows Update to have 2D (and 3D) acceleration! Sometimes even to have the correct resolution! On other hand, Fedora comes with all these preinstalled! Yay!
The days of Windows XP are over. This has been much better i.e "just works" since Vista.
So you might not like it but it "works better" out of the box for most people.
"Oh windows is bad" doesn't really help us ... "Windows does X and Y better" OTOH does because it allows us to improve.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512
hi It does allow us to improve, but not when the community cannot decide on a direction because one group wants the easiest solution, and the other wants a foss solution. And just to add my two cents in, windows has gotten better, yes. But it's still got cases where it cannot detect drivers. Neither OS is perfect. Windows does some things better than linux, and linux does some, I'm going to say a lot of, things better than windows. It all mostly comes down to the user. If the user is determined to like windows above anything else, than they can find reasons, eitehr true or not, to discount or otherwise discredit linux. The reverse is true. If a person is determined to use linux, windows could be the most user friendly OS in the world and that wouldn't dissuade them, so long as linux still remains competitive. And I'm not trying to get into a windows vs linux debate. I'm trying, as much as I can be, to be objective. I like linux, therefore I'm not much interested in what windows can and cannot do. I'll focus on improving linux for myself and the other disabled people.
Thanks Kendell clark Sent from Fedora GNU/Linux
drago01 wrote:
On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Diogo Campos (gmail) diogocamposwd@gmail.com wrote:
Hi. Yes, again. [....]
# Codecs = MP3, AAC, H.264, H.265, Vorbis, Opus, VP8, VP9.
Windows: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No, No, No, No.
Fedora: No, No, No, No, Yes, Yes, Yes,Yes.
Conclusion: analyzing the 8 (4 audio, 4 video) current big codecs on the market, we have a tie! Is also worth noting that installing additional codecs on Windows is of a equivalent pain that on Fedora.
Those codecs do not have an equal market share.
# Office Stuff = xls(x), doc(x), ppt(x), ods, odt, odp.
Windows: No, No, No, No, No, No.
Fedora: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.
Conclusion: in (Microsoft) Windows, even to open files from another Microsoft product (Office), you can't without additional work from you (or someone else).
Well you can open doc/x files using Wordpad. But given that most OEMs ship some version of Office that's a moot point.
# Miscellaneous = PDF, torrent, common archives.
Windows: No(!), No, No.
Fedora: Yes, Yes(?), Yes (except RAR, for no reason).
Where is the free RAR implementation? (That's probably the only reason)
And btw. I don't think installing a torrent client by default makes any sense.
As for PDF that's true but OEMs tend to include something.
# Graphic Cards = Intel, AMD, Nvidia.
Windows: No, No, No.
-> Wrong; Wrong; Wrong
Fedora: Yes, Yes, Yes.
Conclusion: Oh, boy! Windows without video drivers is pure garbage! You have to, at minimum, select to install the driver on Windows Update to have 2D (and 3D) acceleration! Sometimes even to have the correct resolution! On other hand, Fedora comes with all these preinstalled! Yay!
The days of Windows XP are over. This has been much better i.e "just works" since Vista.
So you might not like it but it "works better" out of the box for most people.
"Oh windows is bad" doesn't really help us ... "Windows does X and Y better" OTOH does because it allows us to improve.
On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 04:57:58AM -0500, kendell clark wrote:
It does allow us to improve, but not when the community cannot decide on a direction because one group wants the easiest solution, and the other wants a foss solution. And just to add my two cents in, windows
I don't think this has to be a strong one-way-or-the-other dichotomy. Fedora has always taken a strong free software stance, but we've never been pure enough to get the top GNU seal of approval -- and that's okay. long as we agree on the goal (world domination for free software), we can talk about different ways to get there. Our contributor community sentiment as always been strongly in favor of avoiding "the easy way out" when it comes to proprietary and patent-encumbered software, and I generally agree, but that doesn't mean we can't find ways to make our *users'* lives easier when we can demonstrate that it will lead to more and better free software overall.
On Tue, 2015-05-12 at 11:51 +0200, drago01 wrote:
Where is the free RAR implementation? (That's probably the only reason)
It's unar (FOSS replacement for unrar), and it's already in our repos.
Anyway, I actually can open RAR files, and I don't *think* I installed anything (and I actually don't have unar installed, so maybe it uses some lib). Even if we don't have RAR support out-of-the-box (which we should), PackageKit should offer to install RAR support automatically. If that doesn't work, it's a bug.
----- Original Message -----
On Tue, 2015-05-12 at 11:51 +0200, drago01 wrote:
Where is the free RAR implementation? (That's probably the only reason)
It's unar (FOSS replacement for unrar), and it's already in our repos.
unar is short for "The Unarchiver". The command-line interface isn't compatible which means it's not just another command to try out in evince's CBR support for example.
Given that the goal for evince's CBZ/CBR/CBT/CB7 support is to use libarchive instead: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=720742 we're waiting on fuller RAR support there: https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/issues/373
Anyway, I actually can open RAR files, and I don't *think* I installed anything (and I actually don't have unar installed, so maybe it uses some lib). Even if we don't have RAR support out-of-the-box (which we should), PackageKit should offer to install RAR support automatically. If that doesn't work, it's a bug.
file-roller has specific support for "The Unarchiver" in src/fr-command-unarchiver.c
# Codecs = MP3, AAC, H.264, H.265, Vorbis, Opus, VP8, VP9.
Windows: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No, No, No, No.
Fedora: No, No, No, No, Yes, Yes, Yes,Yes.
Conclusion: analyzing the 8 (4 audio, 4 video) current big codecs on the market, we have a tie! Is also worth noting that installing additional codecs on Windows is of a equivalent pain that on Fedora.
Those codecs do not have an equal market share.
Probably because the OS that supports these codecs has 95% of market share.
I strongly suspect that this is more of a convenience thing, like: "let's distribute this work in MP3, because it will work on every system".
So, changing the OS scenario (market share) will automatically change the codecs scenario (market share).
# Office Stuff = xls(x), doc(x), ppt(x), ods, odt, odp.
Windows: No, No, No, No, No, No.
Fedora: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.
Conclusion: in (Microsoft) Windows, even to open files from another Microsoft product (Office), you can't without additional work from you (or someone else).
Well you can open doc/x files using Wordpad. But given that most OEMs ship some version of Office that's a moot point.
As I said, I am comparing "stock Windows" with "stock Fedora" ("stock" meaning: freshly installed system from a official media/ISO).
So, of course I get your point, but you can NOT involve OEMs in THIS comparison.
# Miscellaneous = PDF, torrent, common archives.
Windows: No(!), No, No.
Fedora: Yes, Yes(?), Yes (except RAR, for no reason).
Where is the free RAR implementation? (That's probably the only reason)
Here: https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/unar
(is needed only for RAR 3.0 - which is a bit common)
And btw. I don't think installing a torrent client by default makes any sense.
What a pity, distributed downloads are awesome.
As for PDF that's true but OEMs tend to include something.
I understand. But, again, no OEMs: see above.
# Graphic Cards = Intel, AMD, Nvidia.
Windows: No, No, No.
-> Wrong; Wrong; Wrong
Nope, Nope, Nope.
Install Windows from a "Windows CD" and your graphic card will NOT work for serious until you install a driver from Windows Update or from the wild internet.
Fedora: Yes, Yes, Yes.
Conclusion: Oh, boy! Windows without video drivers is pure garbage! You have to, at minimum, select to install the driver on Windows Update to have 2D (and 3D) acceleration! Sometimes even to have the correct resolution! On other hand, Fedora comes with all these preinstalled! Yay!
The days of Windows XP are over. This has been much better i.e "just works" since Vista.
Yes. But not that much. At least until Windows 7, not the sufficient to make Fedora "eat dust" in a FAIR comparison.
So you might not like it but it "works better" out of the box for most people.
Yes. BECAUSE of previous additional work from someone. Be OEM, or a friend, etc.
"Oh windows is bad" doesn't really help us
Sad. I thought a (positive) reality check could be a little helpful (and encouraging) for the community.
... "Windows does X and Y better" OTOH does because it allows us to improve.
Ok. Windows does market monopoly and social alienation better.
On Tue, 12 May 2015 19:12:38 +0200, Diogo Campos (gmail) diogocamposwd@gmail.com wrote:
# Graphic Cards = Intel, AMD, Nvidia.
Windows: No, No, No.
-> Wrong; Wrong; Wrong
Nope, Nope, Nope.
Install Windows from a "Windows CD" and your graphic card will NOT work for serious until you install a driver from Windows Update or from the wild internet.
Installed vanilla Windows 8.1 on my desktop computer yesterday - it had wrong resolution for about 5 minutes, then, on the fly, it installed the official Intel drivers and switched the resolution automatically. No restarts, no interaction from my side on this matter, nothing, it just worked.
On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 01:18:23PM +0200, Martin Bříza wrote:
Installed vanilla Windows 8.1 on my desktop computer yesterday - it had wrong resolution for about 5 minutes, then, on the fly, it installed the official Intel drivers and switched the resolution automatically. No restarts, no interaction from my side on this matter, nothing, it just worked.
Now do the same when what's missing is networking drivers. Personally seen this multiple times on multiple systems.
I know that everybody here loves Linux but theres one difference on Windows that we can't beat. Most os PC's comes with Windows pre-installed and all drivers working.
At least here, when I see Linux preinstalled, most of time is a "obscure" distribution not well maintained in very old hardware configuration.
Does't matter the reasons, people get impression that Windows is better because "it works". Yes, it is a fallacy but a fallacy hard to explain for people that buy a computer that don't works well because comes with "Linux" preinstalled.
What could fix this problem is a restriction on use of Linux trademark.
2015-05-13 23:41 GMT-03:00 Lars Seipel lars.seipel@gmail.com:
On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 01:18:23PM +0200, Martin Bříza wrote:
Installed vanilla Windows 8.1 on my desktop computer yesterday - it had wrong resolution for about 5 minutes, then, on the fly, it installed the official Intel drivers and switched the resolution automatically. No restarts, no interaction from my side on this matter, nothing, it just worked.
Now do the same when what's missing is networking drivers. Personally seen this multiple times on multiple systems. -- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 8:30 PM, Everaldo Canuto everaldo.canuto@gmail.com wrote:
I know that everybody here loves Linux but theres one difference on Windows that we can't beat. Most os PC's comes with Windows pre-installed and all drivers working.
At least here, when I see Linux preinstalled, most of time is a "obscure" distribution not well maintained in very old hardware configuration.
Does't matter the reasons, people get impression that Windows is better because "it works". Yes, it is a fallacy but a fallacy hard to explain for people that buy a computer that don't works well because comes with "Linux" preinstalled.
What could fix this problem is a restriction on use of Linux trademark.
What could fix this is lawyers and accountants and marketers and engineers working together to get a partnership deal with a hardware vendor done. Someone would actually have to convince skeptical managers that there was a business opportunity - a market of buyers that is not being served by Windows machines, Macs, ChromeBooks, tablets and smartphones.
I'm guessing the Dell "Sputnik" (laptop with Ubuntu pre-installed) "just works" - if it didn't we'd certainly hear about it on Twitter and in the trade press. I wouldn't buy one because I'm perfectly capable of dual-booting any Linux distro on an inexpensive Windows laptop or installing it to bare metal on a custom-built workstation. I might buy a Fedora laptop if I could get the hardware capacity I need at a price lower than one with Windows pre-installed.
desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org
-
Alexander Bisogianis -
Bastien Nocera -
Diogo Campos -
drago01 -
Everaldo Canuto -
kendell clark -
Lars Seipel -
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky -
Martin Bříza -
Martin Stransky -
Matthew Miller -
Michael Catanzaro